FARM AND GARDEN.

King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 358, 6 May 1911, Page 6

FARM AND GARDEN.

—- STRAW AS FODDER. During winter, when grass is scarce, straw becomes more valuable as stock food, and a straw stack to pull at comes in useful. Seldom on colonial farms is trouble taken to feed straw in any other form but from the stack. The value of straw is based upon its chemical analysis and digestibility. Among cereals straws, oat straw is the most valuable, being soft and nutritious and almost equal in quality to poor hay. The "Live Stock Journal" says that in England, along with roots it forms in some districts the sole feed of store stock in winter. It is of great value, especially when chopped as a bulky food for milch cows, and it is also very useful when fed along with concentrated foods whch are too rich and concentrated if given alone. Barley, wheat and rye straw should be chopped or chaffed and mixed with pulped roots and allowed to ferment before being fed to cattle, as this renders them more digestible. Too much barley straw, however, causes unthriftiness in cattle, and is very unsuitable for butter-making. It causes pale butter, and makes the cream liable to go to sleep during churning. Bean straw, if the crop has been well harvested and cut before it was dead ripe, proves very nutritious fodder, whilst pea straw, if free from mildew, is also a very good food. Both these straws contain twice as much or more albuminoids as the cereal straws. Straw is of most value when the crop has been cut before being quite ripe. The leguminous or pulse straws "are all straws, but are frequently very tough and indegestible owing to prolonged harvesting caused by inclement weather. In England, cotton or linseed cake, beans or peas, are fed with straw, but molasses is a nceessary laxative if stock are much dependent upon straw food. On this subject Mr Primrose McConnell has a note in "The Dairy," in which he says that there was a time when live stock of all kinds were fed in winter with long fodder, whole roots, and whole grain. The only chaff on the farm was that naturally derived from threshing grain; but this was found so useful for mixing with other foods, and for easily dividing among a lot of other animals, that an attempt was made to make some more artificially. Then the era set in of chaffing hay and straw of all kinds, of pulping or slicing roots, or grinding grain into meal, and so on. During the last few years many experiments, carried out at various American experimental centres have cast doubts on the value of this work of communication and mixing—the benefits obtained do not pay for_ the extra trouble and expense —but rightly or wrongly, the system is so ingrained into British ideas of farming that it is hard to think otherwise than that they are doing some good by such practices. The chaffing of straw and the pulping of roots are complements of each other. Whole roots fed on a cold morning are not likely to do the stock so much |ood as if pulped and mixed with "chop" The dry chaff takes up the sap of the roots, and the mixture is immensely relished by ail whether the results per weight of food given are better or not. It was held at one time that for cattle the chaff should be on the Song cut, of about an inch in length; nowadays they prefer it to be under half an inch, for cattle can quite well chew the end cud on this, while the great comminution admits of a greater power of absorbtion or mixing with root sap, meals or molasses. The extreme comminution is carried out by some in the United States, who grind up lucerne hay to a powder and feed it as meal, with good results. Mr McConnell says they might do the same in England with clover hay and bean straw, as well as with lucerne hay, but no one seems yet to have done so, for a disintegrator for the purpose is an installation beyond ordinary farming. All this points to the fact that fine chaffing —say, quarter inch lengths—-with the coarse straws like oats and bean is the best method to adopt, though it takes longer to do it.

GENERAL ITEMS

A horse is well broken when he has been taught implicit and cheerful obedience to his rider or driver, and dexterity in the performance of his work. A sheep named Nellie, said to be the oldest in England, has died at Messrs Paget and Son's farm at Aylestone, near Leicester. She was in her 23rd year. Every milk vessel must have a mouth wide enough to admit the hand, and should after use be thoroughly cleaned with a wet cloth and rinsed out, and finally scalded with boiling water. Cleanliness for the sow and little pigs is absolutely necessary if ona expects to raise properly. More pigs die from being obliged to live in and around a dirty pen than every other disease imaginable. The education of the horse should be like that of the child. Pleasure should be as much as possible associated with the early lessons, while firmness, or, if need be, coercion, must establish the habit of obedience. Milk cans should be so constructed that every part inside is easily cleaned, and when the lid is removed, no dust or water falls into the can. Lids must be close-fitting and dustproof; they should be sealed or locked in transit. A sow will bring forth her litter in about 112 days from conception. At farrowing-time each 30W should be in a pen by herself, placed in her new home long enough before farrowingtime, so that she will become accustomed to it.

Those who keep mixed flocks of sheep cannot expect top price for their wool clip. A sheep that is in good condition for growing a healthy fleece has a double value to the farmer, who then caters for the butcher and the cloth manufacturer. It is surprising how soon, under a system of kind management, the animal which has been accustomed to go where he pleased and to do as he thought fit: may be taught to yield up his will to another, and to obey with alacrity hn master's bidding. Pigs must have liberty. Let the little pigs have a chance to get out of the pen and caper round and run around when they aie only a few days old. Unless this is done, and they are kept shut in the small pen, they are apt to get too fat and die. There is a difference of opinion with regard to the advantage or otherwise of bruising oats. It is said that they are apt to produce diarrhoea, especially if the animal is worked hard, and it i 3 further alleged that many horses will not eat them with an appetite.