Farm and Garden

King Country Chronicle, Volume IV, Issue 224, 12 January 1910, Page 3

Farm and Garden

GREEN MANURING. Green manuring is effective both in sandy and on heavy clay soils, and, indeed, on all soils deficient in humus. On sandy soils the effect of green manuring is to consolidate the soil, the humus formed binding the particles together. On clay soils, the effect of the addition of humus and the production of carbonic acid is to loosen and aerate them. When conditions as to warmth and moisture are favourable, and the crop decomposes fairly rapidly, the production of soluble plant food proceeds with considerable rapidity. This is specially the case in respect of nitrogen, which is the principal manurial ingredient. Nitrification, that is, the conversion of the nitrogenous material of the plant into soluble nitrates, takes place quite rapidly. In sandy soils, green manure nitrifies more rapidly than manures like dried blood, bonedust, etc., while in stiff clay, soils the green crop nitrifies very much more rapidly than either suplhate of ammonia or animal manures.

THE FARROWING SOW. The farrowing sow, if left to her own devices, will prepare a deep, warm bed, carrying straw or dry grass to it for hours before her time approaches; in fact, sows may be looked for to farrow about 24 hours after they begin to make their bed. The soft elastic bed of iriakes a capital nest for the little ones, and they are not so likely to be overlain as when only a limited quantity of straw is supplied. As they are naturally fond of warmth and comfort, the mother should always be allowed to have her own way, and make the provision she thinks necessary for the welfare of her young.

WHY COWS CHEW BONES. ("Australian Farm and Home.") Chewing bones, eating old leather, whips, boots, and rags are all indications that the cows want something that they do not find in their regular food, or else that they have lost their appetite and have a constant craving or an abnormal condition of the digestive organs. A perfectly healthy cow will be fully satisfied with healthful food, such as grass or hay, just as a young healthy calf will be perfectly satisfied with its mother's milk taken in nature's way. The best cows, those giving the most milk, are the most persistent bone chewers, while the steers and young stock and the dry cows, or those giving little milk, rarely notice a bone. We never heard of a steer acquiring .the habit of chewing bones, and much doubt if one ever did. Who of us has reckoned up how many pounds of bone material have been taken from our cow pastures that have been fed close every summer for fifty years? Why is it'that almost all farmers are agreed that bone phosphate is better suited to the needs of their land thpn any other form of commercial manure? Why is it that crops respond to bone phosphate more readily than to almost any other kind of fertiliser? Simply because under our system of selling animals and milk we have been depleting our soils of the bone elements. , The cows that chew bones are most generally those which have been kept in pastures that have not been ploughed or manured for a long term' of yaers, and in which the animals are too frequently compelled to get their entire living. Farmers who have new pastures, or who feed liberal rations of either chaff and bran, ensilage or maize to their cows, are rarely troubled "by having them acquire this disagreeable habit. Bran, on account of its large content of bone material, make's an excellent food for cows in this condition, and if fed in liberal quantities with chaff will cure any cow of the habit, if she is not otherwise diseased. Bone meal can also be strongly recommended. Excellent results have been obtained by using Cockbill' specially prepared cattle lick.\ We could point to two pastures, lying on opposite banks of a small stream, on one of which the feed is always good, while on the other it is as constantly poor. The difference in the feed is caused solely by the difference in the character of the soil. One is a thin, sandy gravel, which produces only the poorest kind of vegetation, while the other is a deep, fine loam, where rich pastures thrive in perfection. In one of these pastures cows will never notice a bone in their path, while in the other a bone would be among the first things to be picked up. We have seen cows statid and chew a bone for hours—certainly a most satisfactory occupation of their time.