Salt For Stock.

King Country Chronicle, Volume II, Issue 104, 22 October 1908, Page 3

Salt For Stock.

Professor Aitken gives the following reasons why salt should be regularly be supplied to farm stock:—l. Because in the blood of animals there is six or seven times more, sodium than potassium, and the composition of the blood is constant; 2, to keep animals in good health a definite amount of common salt must be assimilated; 3, the excess of potassium salts in vegetable foods causes by chemical exchange an abnormal loss of common salt. This is proved by the fact that the craving of an animal for common salt is most noticeable when the food contains a large proportion "of potassium salts, such as wheat, barley, oats, potatoes, beans and peas; 4, the addition of salt to animal food increases the appetite, promotes the repair of tissue by its searching diffusion through the body, and stimulates the rapid using up of its waste products; 5, Boussingault's experiment showed that salt increases muscular vigour and activity, and improves their general appearance and condition. If you starve your soil it will starve you.. The terrible nature of glanders has been demonstrated in Austria. Through the breaking of a tube containing glanders bacilli the whole staff of the Food Investigation Department of an important town have been attacked, and two of the chief officials have died.

If your orchard is to be a success you must aciopt scientific methods, and prune, cultivate, fertilise and spray, according to the latest information. As a result of experiments made in Wisconsin, U.S.A., it would apjvar that a cow in that country reaches her best during the iiftn and sixth year.? of her life; up to that age. if the cow is in normal condition, the production o; milk and butter-fat increases. As regards the length of time that a cow will maintain her maximum production, this depends largely upon her constitutional strength and the care with which she is fed and managed. A pood average cow, properly managed, should remain at her best productive standard almost unimpaired until after she is ten years old. Generally speaking, a cow may be said to have passed her best after her tenth year, though many excellent records have been made by older animals. It is sometimes contended that a mixture of superphosphate and sulphate o" am monia, with ;.the same analysis, can be depended upon to produce equal results to a bone manure; but this is not the case, according to the experience of practical farmers, and their preference for a good bone manure is justified by the fact that the manure contains a proportion of undissolved bone phosphate which, being of an organic nature, is valuable, not only feeding the plant in the late stages of growth, but useful in the development of beneficial bacterial life. Nearly 201bs, of phosphoric acid go with every lOOOlbs. of live animal. Facts such as these emphasise the importance of fertilising. Calves, like most people, arc apt to be notional, and it exercises our patience to try to satisfy their wants. But the man, who by trial finds out how to do it, is the successful stock-raiser. So if the calvjs will not drink out of the stock tank, try watering them in a pail.