AGRICULTURAL ITEMS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LVII, Issue 6511, 9 January 1882, Page 6

AGRICULTURAL ITEMS.

Iktkhcolonial, The English skylark has been successfully acclimatised in the Clarence district of New South Wales. Tho conservator of South Australian forests will this year distribute gratis 350,000 plants and trees to co-operative bodies. Twenty-five bales of wool shorn in. (ho Kimberly district, West Australia, this year. Only four last year. How many in 1890*? In the early districts of Victoria tho wheat harvest has already quite generally sot in, some of the crops, by means of the expeditious stripper, having now reached the Melbourne market. Reports from all quarters in tho north indicate that serious damage has been donn to the crops of South Australia by the recent thunderstorm. In some cases the loss has exceeded £SOO on a single rano. Summer is commencing with dry, wWia, agreeable weather (says tho Sydney Mail), and finds the Colony in a condition to resist her dry winds and other parching influences. Stock are in good health, and the pastures sufficiently strong to answer the requirements of a few months. Away from tho river frontages water is scarce, but it would seem that there are no serious fears on that score. Shearing still proceeds, but in many districts it is finished, and from all sides come reports of heavy clips of sound marketable wool. The wheat harvest has commenced in the south, and here also there are grounds for congratulation, for although last year’s general average will not bo topped, it is probable that a satisfactory yield will be obtained. The vines look remarkably healthy. Gleanings. Pigs should be allowed to have a heap of coal ashes. They will be all the healthier for it. Professor Biley, the noted etmologiat, says that kerosene oil is sura death to insects in all stages, and the only substance with which wo may hope to destroy their eggs. With a population of but 25,000,000, England annually consumes 500,000,000 pounds of cheese, while the United States, with a population of 50,000,000, consumes only 270,000,000 pounds of cbeese annually.

Wheat is now sown in nine months of the year in England—from August to April. October and November are the principal months for this work. The advocates of thin seeding prefer early sowing, whileit is advantageous to sow thicker as the season advances. Too much attention cannot be paid to the cleanliness and ventilation of stables and pens. To ensure the health and comfort of animals they must be kept dry and warm, and have plenty of light as well as pure air and pure water. Salt is needed by cows, and unless they are provided with a regular supply they will not keep up their quantity of milk. It is best to give some at stated times—once a week or every day. An ounce a day is a reasonable allowance.

An improved arm seeder has been patented by Phillip Strong, jun, of fiaranash, Mich. This device is to be carried or worn by the person using it, by means of which all kinds of grain or seed may be scattered or sown broadcast over the ground evenly and with less exertion than heretofore: and the invention consists, principally, of a bag having a flexible tube or smaller portion connected to a sectional metal distributor, which is provided with a valve, and adapted to be swung from side to side for throwing and scattering the grain, the grain from the bag being regulated by means of the valve. The period of milking may be classed in three parts. For the first six or seven weeks after calving the largest quantity of milk is produced. After this the yield falls off pretty considerably, but then remains at about the same figure for two or three months, when a steady decline sets in until the cow is perfectly dry. By careful feeding the best parts of the milking periods may be prolonged, and this ought to be the aim of all milk producers. If green fodder and other food which stimulates milk secretions can ha used at the right time, a considerable extra quantity of milk may be produced. During the milking periods the proportion of the caseine increases and that of butter decreases. Milk produced by cows soon after cainng contains, therefore, more butter and lees cateino than later, and the difference is great enough to make itself felt in the larger dairies, if tho caws calve about the same part of the year. It is a poor practice to be continually dosing animals. When we see a farmer frequently visiting the drug store for medicines for bis stock, the impression is that there is something radically wrong in his management. Ho is tho “ sick one,” and needs the aid of a good physician—some one to show him that sickness rarely happens on a well ordered farm ; that clean, warm stables, and plenty of good feed, pure water in abundance, etc., are far better than their opposites, with all the physio that the largest drug store can supply. Nothing is more clearly proved than the importance of earn and keeping of the right sort for the health of farm animals and their profitable growth and increase. Sickness wi 1 sometimes come with the very best management, and when it does it is bettor to employ skilled hands to euro than to “ doctor ” and. “ physic/' and perhaps kill the valuable animal yourself, that under proper treatment might have been saved at a trifling expense. The situation, the structure, and tho size of the rumen or paunch point it out as the first and general receptacle-for the food, which received in the mouth only sufficient mastication to enable the animal to swallow it. When swallowed it is received by the rumen, and morsel after morsel is taken until this, the first of the animal's four stomachs, is comparatively full. A sense of repletion precedes rumination, during which act the animal generally prefers a recumbent posture. It is not to be supposed that all the food taken is again ruminated j it is only the bulky or solid portions that undergo the process. When the rumen is moderately full, it will contract on its contents, and first squeeze out tho fluid portions, which will pass into tho third end fourth stomachs, while the solid part will bo embraced by tho OBJuphagns, or stomach pipe, and returned to tho mouth. By tho term ” loss of the cud ” is meant a cessation of the chewing of the cud, which oo.urs as a symptom of most internal diseases of cattle.

The'Livs Blooh Journal gives the following description of how a first-class judge of cattle will estimate their value s—“ Bee hi# ‘touch!’ It is done in the twinkling of an

eye, so to say. His left hand on tho hip bone, hit right on the last rib, ho grasps a handful of skin to see how loose and thick and mellow it is. It should feel like a thick soft railway rug, and bo almost as loose from tho ribs; ho should be able to got a good warm handful of it clear away from tho bones) the thick handful of’ it denotes quality, the looseness health. The rib should be nearly as brand os tho buck of his hand { a beast with a narrow rib like a man's i* no good. The hips should bo wido apart, love), well skinned, and far enough away from tho tail. The thighs should bo deep’ and wido, with plenty or bone in tho legs. Tho back should be wido and level and I ng. Tho shoulder points should not moot like tho edge of one's hand, but bo broad like tho hack of it. Tho chest should bo wido aud deep, and tho dewlap well forward and down. Lastly, there should bo plenty of hair, a pleasant countcuar.ee, a free-and-easy gait, and youth. This is tho sort of stock tho grasior loves to buy when ho can got it.” '