Farm Topics.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 17 May 1910, Page 4

Farm Topics.

NOTED HOLSTEIX COWS. Princess Carlotta, a Holstoin cow in the dairy herd of tlio Missouri College of Agriculture, gives mure milk tbiiu any other cow in .Missouri. Jll the last year she gavo IS,-l:()o pounds of milk, of 1300 gallons. From this 727 pounds of butter was made. This cow shows the advantage of using good stock in a dairy. At the present price of milk ill Columbia, 7 J cents a quart, she would liavo brought her owner G'JO dollars for this year. A cow with a record like that is worth about 1500 dollars. Her food costs 80 dollars, leaving a profit of 610 dollars. This is more than 10 per cent net income, looking at it as an investment. Princess Carlotta. produced as much milk as five ordinary farm cows. The five cows probably would cost 200 dollars to feed. The same advantage is gained as by u. I *- iug an efficient machine instead of an ordinary one. The upkeep is greater, but the results are wortli it. A person's average daily consumption of milk is one-third of a quart. On this basis Princess Carlotta '■aiikl have supplied the milk for a hotel with 7") guests. TRAINING WOOL CLASSERS. Tho system by which students are taught wool classing in South Australia. was explained to the Wool Classers' Board, says the .laipukuraii Press, by .Mr J. 11. .Matthews, Government sheep and wool expert in connection with tho -agricultural Department. The student, ho said, went through a. three-year course. In his first year ho worked lor four months, and then, if ho could pass an examination, went through a practical course in sorting, or skirting, on stations. lie was taught the value of wools, and how to classify ithem according to tins market demands. Then ho was examined by a Government Board, and entered the institution for another three months. Alter tha't, he went to the stations for his second year. In this lie was trained and examined by tho board in tho classing of fleeces. Mr Maltthews knew of no student who had obtained the diploma under four years' aprenticeship. Wliilo he had been connected with tho institution, out of 500 students only four had been considered by tho board competent to hold tho diploma, as fully qualified wool classers. Most of tho students were farmers' sons, who were attending to obtain informaition on sheep is well ns wool. They did not aim at being professional wool classers.

TREATMENT OF Cmm iOS

"My father," writes a correspondent of "The Diary," used to lose a. number of heifers every year from blackleg, until ho was told by an old man to give every calf a pound of coarse brown sugar divided into the first threo meials of ■milk. After this ho never lost another. Sometimes he grazed a heifer for a cottager, and it generally died; of course, it had not got sugar. It is now considerably over fifty years since we began to treat calves in this way, and ve have found i>t invariably successful!. To make sure the calf gets the j sugar we melt it in a little hot water, and administer it before feeding." The present writer is not in a.position to test the treatment, but would ask if it was .nor the sugar that made tho calves immune throughout life, what was the cause of the immunity, and how did the trouble stop when the sugar was given? On the other hand, if this treatment is effectual, why have we never heard of it before during all those years when many farmers have been at their wits' end to save their stock? Again, would the administration to, say, yearlings, be as effectual as to calves, presuming that the disease it prevented was really blackleg? A further [ question is opened up. I,n those days a tremendous amount of sugar, feed is used for stock in the form of preparations of molasses or coarse treacle, and several makes are on tho market: have tho users of these noticed any diminution of tho blackleg scourge since they began to feed them. The sugar in molasses and brown sugar are very similar, and the effect ought to be the same. Fifty or sixty years ago sugar was an expensive luxury, but nowadays it is one of tho cheapest feeds, and if it also acts as a (preventive medicine it can be easily administered,