Farm and Garden

King Country Chronicle, Volume IV, Issue 292, 7 September 1910, Page 6

Farm and Garden

BUTTER AND MOISTURE. The Minister for Agriculture is considering a proposal to meet difficulties which the makers of private dairy butter are experiencing in preventing their butter containing excess of moisture. It has been suggested by the directors of the daky produce division that a depot be established at one or more of the central shipping ports, through which makers of dairy butter would have the privilege of sending their produce. At such a depot it would be tested before shipment, and in some cases, where any excess of moisture in the butter was detected, it could be reworked and repacked before being shipped, for a charge, estimated at 6d per box. DO MILK RECORDS PAY? Professor Hopper, of Indiana, after a study of twenty herds—47B yearly records during three and a-half years —reports, said an American essayist, that with the same care and feeding the cows that were the result of grading or breeding through animals with dairy blood in them averaged 2681b of fat a year, while those of indiscriminate and reckless breeding averaged but 1821b of fat, a difference of 861b of fat, which at 25 cents per lb, amounts to 21.50 dollars a year per average cow. This means that in a herd of 20 cows, one-half of their calves being heifers, there will be raised in five years fifty heifers whose combined earning power will have been increased 10.75 dollars per year by having been sired by a well-bred dairy bull, such as can be brought for from 50 dollars to 200 dollars. From Bulletin No. 127, Indiana Experimental Station: Conclusions drawn from the study of 197 yearly records of cows are as follows:—The difference between systematic grading and promiscuous mating was 641b of butterfat per cow. The average profit in graded herds wa536.04 dollars; in nongraded herds, 19.62 dollars. The nongraded herds charged cents more per lb for butter-fat than the graded herds. CROSSBRED COWS. It is an unfortunate fact that our best milkers are generally crossbreds. The yield of milk is not unfortunate, 'out the fact that we cannot perpetuate the family of the milker. Every crossbred animal necessitates the existence of two pure breeds, and we have always to go back to these pure breeds to get a further supply of crossbreds. If we breed from a crossbred animal, however good she may be, we get progeny which in a large majority of cas".s turn out to be inferior in some respect. Perhaps the Mendelian theory explains this, but the fact remains that a second cross nearly always turns out to be an inferior animal; some undesirable characteristic reasserts itself, and we have to go back to purer breeds to get a first cross again. Some of the most notable crosses we have are the Shorthorn - Ayrshire, the ShorthornJersey, the Dutch-Ayrshire, and so on for milking purposes. We know the history of many of our pure breeds today; that they were made by judicious crossing at some time in the past, and then the type "fixed" by rigid selection of breeding animals. A cow which is a cross between a Dutch and a Jersey ought to combine quantity and richness in her milk, and if we had such an animal multiplied into a whole herd, and the type fixed as a breed, we would have a splendid milking 3train, but time and money are too short for ordinary men to do this. In ordinary dairy farming, however, wherever such crosses can be made, they should be looked after, for they are likely to be good milkers in the majority of cases. MANURING OF VINES.

A professor of the French Department of Agriculture has been making a special study of the influence of fertilisers on vines. • His report will be interesting to New Zealand growers, as it shows how extremely sensitive vines, and no doubt other crops to a less extent, are to the effect of fertilisers. His conclusions are summarised as follows:—1. That chemical fertilisers, judiciously selected, exercise the greatest influence on the growth of the vine and the character of the grapes. 2. That the mixture of nitrate of soda with sulphate of potassium and superphosphate of lime has, for the last nine years successively yielded the most profitable returns. 3. That the action of the nitrate of soda on the vine is not affected by dry weather. 4. That chemical fertilisers improve the quality of the grapes—whether destined for table use or for the making of wine. Not far from Bordeaux a large grower spread over his vineyard a few years ago quantities of alluvial soil mixed with stable manure. As a result his crop of grapes was larger than usual, but his wine was of very inferior quality. The character of the soil

appeared to have been so changed or modified that the usual delicately flavoured wine was no longer produced. Another vineyard invariably produced excellent wine until one season the proprietor used pieces of cueosoted wood for arbour stakes. The grape crop was as large as usual, but the wine was so strongly impregnated withl creosote as to be undrinkable. So well understood is this fact of the sensitiveness of the grape vine, that the courts in a suit against a railroad company awarded damages to the owner of a vineyard at Saint Emilion, who claimed that his entire crop was ruined by the proximity of a pile of creosoted piles. It appeared that the ties were so placed that the prevailing breeze during the growing season reached the vineyard laden with the odour of creosote. This so affected the growing plants that when the wine was made its flavour and bouquet were found to be utterly destroyed.