Farming Items.

Feilding Star, Volume XV, Issue 282, 7 April 1894, Page 4

Farming Items.

According to late reports from America, breeders of cattle in Texas, Louisiana, and several other Southern States, were being very much tried by a fever which was decimating their herds. It was thought at first that the malady was caused by the sting of an insect, but it bas now been ascert aiued to be due to the presence of a parasite in the blood, two savants having traced it to the destruction of the red globf'es in the blood. Cattle in the territories where the malady prevails are found in many cases, despite their apparent good health, to have the microbe of the disease in their blood, while experiments made prove that the fever can be transmitted by in- 1 oculation. A gentleoun has been enquiring for about ten acres of land at Shannon upon which to start a bee iarm. It will be passing strange if he does not succeed. " Peradventure there are ten" acres to be got, and this goodly land may flow with milk and honey. And yet it is quite possible that rather than see the town made a flourishing centre of different industries, those who could meet the demand for land Will hold to it or ask such a stiff price that the intending buyer will tall down in a fit. There will be a big drop in price of land here yet. The sitrns are not wanting even now. Last year Great Britain imported dead meat of the declared value of upwards of £22,000,000. It is well known that American buyers have always been fastidious about the colour of the horses they purchased, but the American Clydesdale Horse Society appears to be anxious to carry this fastidiousness to an extreme. After next year no animal that is grey or white will be admitted into the stud book of the Society. In the old country butchers are getting familiar with the weighbridge. Not long since a farmer meeting a bntclier on his way to his shop lrom auction mart, asked, "How's cattle selling to-day." Butcher, quite innocently: " Very dear, I paid 40s perewt, for two, but they are grand beasts'" This answer clearly showed tbat the butcher, at least* had taken due note of the lite weight.