Farm and Garden

King Country Chronicle, Volume III, Issue 174, 19 July 1909, Page 4

Farm and Garden

SATISFACTORY POULTRY FENCE. As I keep 200 Rhode Island Red hens and do not wish ot have them trouble my neighbours, nor the flower garden, I have 500 or 600 feet of hen fence to maintain, and as I can at this season, better than any other,attend to it, I have been removing an old woven slat fence and substituting a new wire fence. As I thought it might be beneficial to some readers to know how to make a neat, durable fence with less expense and time than any I ever saw put together elsewhere, I will tell my oriingal method. This method may be adopted not only for hen fence, but for any wire fence for all kinds of stock.

Those who have dug post holes in hard gravel and used large wooden posts know it is a long, tedious job to get the standards ready to receive the wire, instead uf all this labour Igo to a wholesale junk store and buy 1inch galvanised water or gas tubing which costs less than the plain iron, and is in keeping with the galvanised netting. I had it cut into the lenghts I required. There need be no waste, as the pieces can be coupled together. For a 52 ioch ben fence the posts should be 7 feet 4 inches long. That will allow room for three feet in the ground and a narrow board above the ground, fastened with staples to the posts to receive the lower edge of the wire netting,which is fastened to the boards with small staples. At the top of each post there is a small hole bored to receive a short piece of wire. To fasten the top of the netting I put a wire in the centre of each post to stay the netting to the post. The top hole need go through only one thickness of the pipe as the wire can be entered at the top. There need be no hole through the centre, as the netting will hold the wire in place. In putting up barb wire fences a hole must be bored where each line of wire is to be stayed and then fastened through this hole with a short piece of wire. Corner posts should have braces made of 1 1-2 or 5-8 piping flattened at the end and fastened to the post three feet from the bottom end with a rivet or small bolt and run at right angle from the post three feet, then bent to come within one foot of the top and fastened there. The bottom of the brace should lie on a flat stone so it will not sink into the ground when stretching the wire. To make the boles to receive the posts-one can use a small iron bar. t. used a piece of 1 inch round iron and had a steel point put into it to drive it through bard gravel witb a sledge hammer. Fences made with these iron posts look much neater than those with large wooden standards, and 1 think will last longer.—American Agriculturist.

BASIC SLAG AND POTASH. o The summary of agricultural experiments in the "Journal of the Board of Agriculture," is devoted entirely to the manuring of grass land. A cooperative experiment in the manuring of poor bill pasture, begun in 1901, bas given discouraging results. Out of several manures and mixtures tried, basic slag alone has proved remunerative although other manures have improved the pasture to some extent. As so often happens, lime has failed

to do any good, and even has seemed | to reduce the crops of grass. It is j curious that this is the case, as the ; clovers require lime, and it is correc- j tive to sourness in the soil. One of the most interesting trials was that of applying both basic slag and sulphate of potash to a pasture upon which either alone had failed to do anj 4 good. The result was excellent, as quite a carpet of clover was produced after two or three years. Basic slag alone is inoperative on some classes of soil, and it has only recently been ascertained in two or three places that the addition of potash renders the application entirely successful. The only question is whether on such light soils, which basic slag does not suit, superphosphate with potash is not at least as advantageous as slag and potash. The former mixture gave the best results in some trials elsewhere.