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King Country Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 594, 16 August 1913, Page 3

| of New South Wales, long famed aa a dairying country, dairy farms have changed hands at i'lo an acre and over; and th 3 land is worth if, especially as the district ia connected with (he capital both by rail and water. Generally speaking - , however, the milk yielding valus of Australian dairy cattle food i 3 not equal t-j that of this country. In favoured months it may be, but it i? the year's experience that has to be considered, and it is here where tha New Zealand milk producer hai the advantage.—J, Drysdale, in the Journal of Department of Agriculture. \CETYLENE PLANT REFUSE. Carbide utilised for the production of acetylene gas leaves as a residue hydrated oxide of calcium, that is to say, slaked lime. By the presence in small quantities of sulphur and phosphorus this residual lime possesses properties making it superior as an insecticide and old killer to ordinary lime, whish is itsilf an excellent antiseptic. This lie can therefore be utilised for the lime washing of trees and bushes, with a view to the destrucion of insects' eggs and parasitic larvae and of the mosses and lichens which cover them, and under which are sheltered a crowd of insects; for the whitewashing of the interior walli of stables, cowhouses, pigstys, etc. In the poultry runs the white-wash-ing of shelters, perche3 etc. ensures the destruction of the vermin so prejudicial to the prosperity of the fowls.

The residual lime taken from the acetylene apparatus may be considered as a fertiliser of the same kind as ordinary lime, and its employment •mould be made under the same conditions, that is to say, limited to those soils which are insufficiently calcareous and to soils rich in organic matter; but it is necessary not to forget that the action of liming gives economical results only when the soil contains sufficient quantity of the divers elements of fertility —nitrogen, Dotash, phosphoric acid—without which it tends to fatal impoverishment of the soil, expressed in the old and well-known phrase, "Lime enriches the father and ruins the children."

The application of lime, therefore, ought to be reserved for those soils rich in fertilising materials, notably in vegetable matter, and only on exhausted soils after they have been furnished with strong doses of farm manure or chemical manure completed by the addition of phogphates and potash.