AGRICULTURAL NOTES.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3019, 28 February 1881, Page 2

AGRICULTURAL NOTES.

British farmers , are expressly debarred by the terms of lease from ploughing up established grass land, and English pastures often show by their surfaces that they have not been broken up since the ancient inhabitants dug the ground for fortifications or buildings. It is considered there that 20 years are requisite to renew the sod surface of thick, interlaced, carpetlike fibres and humus from their decay, and full excellence of produce, in a piece of ground that has been ploughed and reseeded. Even Mr Lawo's skill fails a substitute for this slow natural process. The following method of preserving seeds for vegetation is recommended: —Fill an old cask half full of earth ; put the seeds as near as possible in the middle of the cask, then fill the latter entirely with moist earth, pressing it down, and finally closing the cask so that neither air nor water can enter it. Keep from contract with sea water. In this manner (a London authority affirms) seeds may be brought from the East Indies or New Holland in a state of perfect preservation, and fit to vegetate.

Glycerine is the best emollient to apply to the hoof of the horse when made hard by fever and contraction. It does not dry, and may be used immediately after soaking the hoof in hot water. To do this wrap some rags around the hoof and .soak them with water as hot as the hand can hear. As they dry, wet them again; when the hoofs are well soaked, rub them thoroughly -with glycerine, and repeat every day, after washing with soap and water. If the hoofs ai*e hot and feverish give the horse a dose of salts, and afterwards half an ounce of saltpetre daily for a week. Scientifically speaking, the astonishing effect of hone dust is due to its| furnishing phosphoric acid and nitrogen. On an average, good commercial bone dust contains 23 per cent, of phosphoric acid, and lOOOlba of it contains 381b of nitrogen. In othev words, to quote from authorities, "a dres« sing of bone dust frequently contains 2001b of nitrogen per acre—equal to 20 or 30 tons of barnyard manure.' Now, these constituents, so essential to plant life, are, as a consequence, the main resourses of which the soil is robbed, and their restoration to that soil becomes an absolute necessity to good crops. A Calif ornian inventor has made a machine for pressing and drying potatoes so that they will keep for years, yet preserve their natural flavour. No chemicals are used in the operation of curing, everything being done by a simple machine capable of press* ing six hundred bushels of potatoes ia twenty-four hours. The machine not only presses the potatoes, but lays them on a tray in a concave form with the hollow Bide down. After the pressure they are put into a drying apparatus, where they remain for two hours j then they are ground into coarse meal resembling crached rice. The first shipment of these preserved potatoes to Liverpool last year brought a large profit. The average price of potatoes in San Francisco is about 25 cents a bushel. Dried, they brought in England 455. a hundred* weight. —Farmer.