AGRICULTURAL NOTES.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2691, 22 November 1882, Page 4

AGRICULTURAL NOTES.

Decreased Value of Land.—A significant proof of the decreased value of land was afforded at Cirencester market tho other day. Mr Bazloy, an extensive landowner, residing at Hathorop Castle, Gloucestershire, submitted the tenancy of two farms which he had on his hands to public auction. The farms are in excellent order, and have capital buildings. Tho reseeve bids were half tho former rents. There was a largo attendance of farmers. The first farm, close on 700 acres in extent, was let at .£405, only £5 above tho reserve. Tho other farm was put up at £450, half the former rental, and there being no advance, it was not let. The price of the farm that was let barely exceeded 12s per acre, with freedom of cropping, a most liberal agreement, and no unusual burdens. Another striking instance of the reduced lotting value of land is reported from Kent. The All Hallows Farm, near Rochester, formerly let at £9OO a year, has been in tho market for two years, and has been extensively advertised, yet the sole result is that a tenant has just been secured for it at an annual rent not exceeding £330. This is believed to be the greatest reduction yet made.

Scientific Cheese-making. A French chemist, M. B. Duclaux, has made some interesting experiments in cheese-making, with a view mainly to discover the causes which determine the flavor of cheeses. It has often been asked why cheese made in different districts in a precisely similar manner vary greatly in flavor, while those of one particular spot, although manufactured in vary different ways, are almost precisely alike to tho taste. The researches of M. Duclaux tend to prove that neither climate, soil, food, manipulation, nor variety in the brood of cows largely affects tho quality of the cheese. It would appear rather that a fungus mould allied in some cases to yeast, in others to mould, is communicated by germs in the atmosphere to the cheese, and this it is which gives it its distinguishing flavor. Sanguine people already look forward to tho time when the farmer will ho enabled to inoculate his cheese with a variety of ferments, so as to produce Cheddar, Stilton, Parmesan, or Gruyero at will. Dairy Enterprise.—Colonists would do well to adopt a few useful hints from the recently-issued prospectus of a new dairy company. The Berkeley Vale Shorthorn Dairy Company has been formed, with a capital of £IO,OOO, to carry on all kinds of dairy and farming business. The raison d'etre of the new project is to be found in the fact that owing to the scarcity of good dairy labor, want of modern appliances, and other causes, farmers cannot produce cheese and butter so as to enable them to successfully compete with foreign importers, and in consequence of which farmers have of late taken very largely to tho sale of their milk, sending the same to the large towns by rail, at considerable trouble, expense, and risk. On the other hand, recent experience has shown that butter, cheese, and other products of milk can ho made hy machinery, in large quantitities, at an expense so much below that of the common methods, that whilst a good price may bo given for the milk, the manufacturers may still realise ample profits. Thus the objects of the company are two-fold, and consist (Ist) of establishing, in the heart of the rich pasture district of the Berkeley Vale, a suitable factory, fitted with the most approved dairy machinery, to he worked by steam power, and of thus supplying the farmers with a market for their milk near home, and (2nd) of manufacturing by machinery on a largo scale prime fresh butter and first-class cheese for sale in tho large towns. The headquarters of the company are at Berkeley, in Gloucestershire, and its direction includes many names well-known in the locality, among others that of Lord Francis W. Pitzhardinge. Keen practical ability and sound business knowledge are well represented on tho Board in the person of Mr Robert Ashton Lister, the highly reputed agricultural implement maker of Dursley. Under auspices such a these, and with so fair and reasonable a programme before it, the company can scarcely fail to score a marked and substantial success.