FARM CALENDAR.

Dunstan Times, Issue 768, 5 January 1877, Page 3

FARM CALENDAR.

Monthly Operations. January. The principal operations of this month will he keeping the land devoted to Green Crops open on the surface and free from weeds. All superfluous leaves should ho carefully collected, and steamed with chaff, etc., for pigs and dairy cattle. If the land has been well manured and pulverised, sorrel can be easily eradicated by the scarifier, and collected for burning. The manure heap should receive particular attention, and all liquid manure, from whatever source absorbed by dry, or what is much better, by burnt clay. New land which has been ploughed for exposure, if re-ploughed, should 'have its subsoil untouched. It is now considered preferable to plough such land shallow, so that the succeeding crop may receive the direct benefit of tho decomposing grass. The majority of the Otago subsoils require considerable exposure. A fallow must on no account be permitted to grow a crop of weeds ; such a course is ruinous, and does not benefit the soil—in fact it is not a fallow. The foreign grasses should receive a top dressing. This is the month when all draining operations should be concluded. Under a five-course rotation, the grassland can Ire drained and prepared for a crop of oats or green crops during this month. Oats intended for hay should in all cases he cut before it receives any tinge of yellow from tho sun'; tho change of color being tho indication that tho nitrogeneous matter is changing into woody fibres. In other words, tho most valuable, and consequently the most palatable portion either go into the seed or are wasted in the air. Hence a good judge purchases green in preference to yellow hay. Cure by very little exposure, and in small hand-cocks, and as soon as dry stack or sell at once. Hay cut into chaff and steamed with mangold or refuse grain, will pay better as feed for the dairy than by carting it to town and selling it for a few pounds per ton. Use as much as possible at homo. Milcb cows should Hot bo exposed to beat, : for nearly the same reason that cold reduces their yield. Sapid perspiration reduces not 1 only their fat, hut also their muscular tissue, and consequently leas of their food can be • used for tho production of milk. Gentle perspiration reduces the amount of butter, while if rapid tho yield of both butter and • cheese is decreased. Never drive milch ■ oowa quick.