Rural Column.

Clutha Leader, Volume III, Issue 143, 6 April 1877, Page 7

Rural Column.

The Poverty Bay Herald hears that several thousand pounds' worth of grass see;! has been saved in the Bay this season ; the Maoris alone having gathered L9OOO worth.

A correspondent of the Queenslander replies to a query: — You ask how to cure warts on chickens. Burnt alum will cure them. We have used it frequently, and it lestored. every chicken in a few days. In applying* it, first rub off the warts, then apply the alum;

The Wairßrapa .News states that there is reported to be a marked improvement in the breeding amongst the flocks of the Hangitikei and Kast Coast districts; the clip of : wool has been unusually good this season ; and in most cases the percentage of lambs has far exceededthat of former years.

Coal ashes have a wonderful effect on pear trees, especially those growing on light soil. O.ur ashes of last year were used around trees in liberal quantities, and those treated have outgrown anything in the orchard, Some that were even sickly, and apparently ready to give up their hoM on life, have been restored to perfect health by this treat -

ment.

A correspondent of the Leader writes: Having rof iced that you have several inquiries of late with regard to tlie destroying of warts on horses, I beg to inform you that I have found that touching these troublesome excrescences two or three times with kerosene will destroy them either on the human hands or on horses. I think corns on the human feet would be likely to disappear if kerosene was applied to them on a piece of rag for a few days,

How to make butter hard (says the Adelaide Observer) in hot weather is a. problem which vexes the souls of farmers, especially in such a climate as ours. The following" hints on the subject by an English bnttermaker will, therefore, probably prove acceptable. The best makers in England, it appears, > use for the purpose of making- butter firm in hot weather, a mixture of powdered carbonate of soda and alum. For 201 b of- butter one teaspoonful of carbonate of soda and one teaspoonful of powdered alum are mi rig-led tog-ether at the time of churning 1 and put into the cream. The effect of this powder is to make the butter come firm and solid, and to give it a clean sweet flavour. It does not enter into the butter, but its action is upon the cream, and it passes off with the bntter-milk. The ingredients of the powder should not be mingled together until required to be used, or at the time cream is in the churn ready for churning*. THE DIFFERENCE. T-t is sometimes a great mystery to farmers why their cows dry up prematurely. They are unable to discover any cause for the fact. The following experience of a fellow-sufferer may be suggestive to them. It is our belief that many poor cows may be accounred ' for by a similar. cause. A market gardener, near Boston, had a very fine cow that was milked week about by two hired men. He observed that the amount of butter he carried to mar-, ket weighed about a pound more on each, alternate week. He watched the men, and tried the cow after they had finished milking, but alwaj's found that there was no milk left in the teats. He finally asked the Scotch girl who tookcare of the milk, if she could account for the difference. '" Why, yes," she sa) T s, "when Jim milks he says to thecow, ' so, my pritty little rauley, so ;' but when Sam milks he hits her on the hip with the ed^e of the pail, and says, ' Hist, you old brute.' " ROTATION OF CROPS. The following 'five principles havebeen laid down as fundamental : — 1. ; That every plant supported 'by the soil . exhausts it. -2. That all -plants do not exhaust the soil to an equal extent. 3. That plants of different^kinds do not;exhaust the soil in the same manner, that is, they do not deprive :it of .precisely the same chemical 'contents. 4. That all plants do not restore -to the soil the. same quantity nor the same quality of plant food. 5. That afll the plants are not equally favourable to the growth of weeds, or weeds of the same kind.From these 'five fundamenral principles,, the following seven consequences are, drawn : — l. However well a -soil may be cultured,^ 'cannot long continue to ; nourish crops of the same kind without becoming exhgusted. '2. Every crop' impoverishes the soil more or less, as more or less is restored to tire soil : by : the particular kind of -plant cultivated. 3. "Deeply rooting- and shallow rooting-; plants ought to succeed each -other. 4 ! . ' Plants, -of the same 'kind or tfhe^ame: tribe, should oiot return, often in the of rotation. 5. Two plants of a kind favourable to the growth of weeds, •or the [ sarae 'weeds, ought riot" to succeed : each other. .6. Such' plants as heavily, tax the soil should only be sown after.; plants that do so the least in rotation.' 7. A's the soil is found, to be-getting-.exhausted 'by the -successive reflation" adopted, eminently exhaustive .(Crops, ; ■such as grain or' oil plants, shpuld be omitted from the course -of rotation. — • 'Cumberland; Mercury; ; A. N EW; HAY PRESS . A new kind of hay press, lately set to 'work p^ the Clarence Plains, is thus described "by the correspondent of the Argus-: — "The Dedrick hay press com-, pi-esses 1401 b weight of hay into the small space of nine feet* and disposes of

from 12 to, 14 tons in a day. This ig what it accomplishes with two-horse power: 'The hay drops in small, quantities into a box-shaped chamber, where it is squeezed into thin layers by a norizontal ram. About .18' layers appear to make up a bale 2-|ft. long. The form of the chamber is- sueh — it narrows towards the end remote from the ram — that the completed bale acts as a back to the next one in process of formation, until the new layers become numerous

enough to take its place. ' This is an ; arrangement which not only 'provides the ram with a cushion, but permits work to go on uninterruptedly, and enables the machine to deliver the bales as 'hey are finished. The bales arc secured by a wire passed round the ends before the hay leaves the machine ; they then assume the shape, of square columns made up of layers about 2in. thick. This press is a good example of the American method ; it is so complete that it requires hardly any attention. The principal thing needed is a conslant supply of hay ia the hopper above the box chamber; the machine takes from the hopper the amount necessary to form each layer. Two men and a boy — the favourite number apparently, — are sufficient to attend on the machine, one man to feed the hopper, the other to wire the bales, and the boy to roll the bales away as they drop to the ground. The bales made at the Exhibition contained 7olb. weight of hay in the space of less than five cubic feet,. viz., 3l.'in. x. 14in. x-18in. The result of the efforts of three persons and two horse-power is 300 bales of hay, each bale 1401 b weight, in a day of 10 hours. Mr Morrisby, the proprietor, states that the press works well, and has, in fact, surpassed his expectations." A VALUABLE WIFE. The Huron Expositor is informed of a woman,, the wife of a German farmer, in the township of Colborne in that county, who last fall ploughed seventeen acres of land. This season she mowed with a grass scythe for six days ; she raked ten acres of hay with a horserake, and did the work with a threeyear old. colt which she "broke-in" hersejf, she having bppn tho first to put harness on the animal ; she loaded, un-, loaded, and Learned all the lime and sand required for a new house GO x 30 . feet; she loaded and unloaded all the grain and hay grown- on her husband's farm this season, besides doing much other similar work. This outdoor work was done in addition to. the usual hous«work, including the milking and caring for the milk of seven cows.