HEATING SEED POTATOES.

Franklin Times, Volume 9, Issue 682, 8 November 1921, Page 6

HEATING SEED POTATOES.

A potato grower on the northwest coast of Tasmania, Mi R. Wylie, tried ‘the experiment last year o? heating seed potatoes to a temperature of 125 degrees Fahr. for' four hours. Enough were so treated to plant an acre. Very encouraging results followed. The potatoes from this plot were planted this season without any further treatment, and have carried the effects of the heating to the second generation in a remarkable manner. The plants are much more vigorous and healthy looking than in any of the other crops in fthe vicinty, and there are no misses among thfem. So far as the experiments have gone, says an exchange, they have proved that clean seed can be produced by this means with little difficulty or expense, and that heating exerts some influence upon the vitality of the seed, which ensures a more vigorous growth.

THE PIG INDUSTRY. Farmers would serve their own buying weaners to be sold again on interests by breeding pigs instead of reaching maturity, stated Mr Arthur Mokton at the annual meeting of the Inglewood Bacon Company. He said that the prices being paid were altogether out of reason with the value of the pigs, and instanced the selling of pigs sijf or seven weeks old for 35s at a mart in Inglewood that day. So. long as farmers followed a policy of depending on the other fellow to breed for them (they would have to pay these prices.

AN INJURED TEAT AND THE TREATMENT.

‘ : A dairy cow (an extremely heavy milker) has had one of her v quarters badly cut on barbed wire. It has all healed again, but half way up the teat it has left a small hole, from which the milk is continually dripping. The cow is being dried off in the hope of the injury being cured when there is no flush of milk to interfere with it.” The writer of the foregoing was thus advised :—I would nest advocate treatment until the cow is dried off, and evten then It may not:: be very easy to close the fiistula ; but in order to assist it, I would recommend you. when she is dry to take a perfectly clean knife and scrape the edges of the hole until the blood just shows ; 'then, with a fine needle and thread put a stich in the outside skin of the teat and draw the sides of the hole together. Leave the stitch in for a few days, washing the teat each day with boiled water with a very little disinfectant in it, and then remove th,3 stitch when it appears that the opening is closed Make sure that everything is very clean. —S. T. D. Symons, Chief Inspector of Stock.—“N.S.W. Journal of Agriculture.”