FARM ITEMS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XII, Issue 142, 18 June 1877, Page 4

FARM ITEMS.

Hilling potatoes will give mora bushels to the acre than any flat culture, however nice. To correct a sour swamp, lime is the heat thing in uee. Either rock or shell lime will do. * Too many French farmers invested in the beet sugar interest in the North of France, and the result is a great loss. A valuable mare in foal, belonging to Mrs " Turnbull, of Scalesceugb, Cumberland, was poisoned by eating some of the foliage of a yew tree. N6 less than 185 bags of grain were last week threshed within five hours at. Mr Geo. Wilson's Narrowdales Farm; in the Tokomairiro district. The average yield per acre was 90 bushels, which is the largest heard of as yet this season. .Pigs can bo oured of what is knoftrn as blind staggers by cutting a gash'in the scalp, and rubbing the opening with pepper and salt or powdered camphor.' Cures have been thus wrought when the hog was nearly dead. 'Grow those crops you know best how to grow; adApted to your soil, "location,, markets, and means, grow them every year, be the price high or low, study them so as to grow good crops when others fail, until you can grow them profitably at prices at which others would starve. — Western Agriculturist. Does the dairyman ever suspect that some cows are dreadful loafers? If flies happen to be particularly bad some cows will spend most of tbeir time standing in the water. Some dairymen think the act of standing in the water absorbs the milk from cows, They little suspect it is simply the effect of loafing away her time. — Practical Farmer. A correspondent writes tbat according ;to official statistics, the number of animals killed in the Provinces of Prussia proper, Saxony, and Hamburg, on account of the cattle plague, was 1077 head of cattle and 958 sheep. The plague is now nearly stamped put, only a few cases ocourring from time to time. — Agricultural Gazette, An American paper gives tbe following cure for inflamed hocks:*— Keep tbe horse perfectly still for a weekj and the" joint thickly wrapped in woollen bandages, wet with warm water. Give also a dose- of sis drams Barbadoes. aloes. Then apply an iron at a bright red beat in points three-quarters of an inch apart all round the joint, and so as to penetrate the akin to about half its thickness, but in no case keep the hot iron in contact longer than one second at a time. On the second day after firing, smear the surface with sweet cil, and keep it lubricated in this way until healing ensues. The completeness of the recovery will depend on the freedom of the joint surfaces from unnatural bony deposits. A butcher of Chelmsford died recently, it is believed, from blood poisoning, occasioned by his helping to slaughter a number of cattle on a dairy farm where it was reported an outbreak of cattle plague had occurred. He had a slight scar on his band at the time, and the limb began to inflame and sweli, and, after causing terrible agony, resulted in death. The cattle slaughtered were declared fit for human food and Bent to London. They were suffering froth. spleuio apolexy, and not from any contagious disease, according to the testimony of Mr Duguid, Vetrinary Inspector to the Royal Agricultural .society. — Mark Lane Express. It ia gecerally conceded that wheat . and rye are benefited by harrowing in the spring. The ground should be comparatively dry, and tbe harrow a light one, and if the teeth slant back all the better. Fertilisers can be applied to advantage before harrowing, and if clover is to be sowed, let it be done on the freshly scarified earth. Pastures and; meadow lands are benefited bv harrowing also, using a heavy harrow. Apply top dressing of apjhes, barnyard m.oWe, bone dust, whatever you have, before harrowing, and sow thin and 1 bare places juet alter harrowing, The yield of grass lands could be doubled in many cases by adopting the proper course. — Practical Farmer. V Who can beat it? Mr G. W. Baker, of Lorain Cou.ly, Ohio, writing in the Ohio farmer, eajs:— -" I have seven light ßrabtua hens, pure-bre •, that, during the last 70 daye, have laid 290 e^s. What breed will beat ihis as winter layers? Light Brahmas have no superior for table use. I have r pair of light Brahma capons, 19 months old, whicb weigh 28lbs. Can a.yono make a better sho wiog than the above as layers or for market purposes with any other breed. — Agricultural Gazette.