Farmers’ Column.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 24, 8 July 1871, Page 14

Farmers’ Column.

ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL INTELLIGENCE. [Melbourne Leader.] Perhaps the most important items of Dews brought by the mail steamer Rangoon are those announcing a rise in the price of wool at the April sales, and the firmness of the Australian preserved meat trade. It is by means of these industries that wo are enabled to obtain some of the surplus capital of the old world to help us in developing the resources of this new oountry. Thanks to the energy and perBeverance of Mr Tallerman, this industry is fast becoming firmly established. It will, however, rest with our stock.owners to maintain the character our preserved meats have already acquired. Cereals we are informed were " steady," depending as cereals mostly do on the weather. As regards these, most farmers having already sold their grain, wo have only an interest as buyers, and in this respect the mail news is favorable to the consumer. Prices arelikely to rise in the neighboring colonies and they regulate the prices with us, except through the operations of speculators, aud these will be regulated by the prospects as -the season advances. The weather during the month of March and the beginning of April had been cold and blustering. Winter wheats have suffered much from the ravages of wire worm ; but the young spring corn at our latest date (22nd April) was emerging fast from the soil, and should no serious check be experienced, thelatenesss of the season it was hoped may prove advantageous as regards the general yield. The previous season was one of the driest experienced since 1826, and the past winter has been most severe ; so much so that it is said the summer of 1870 and the winter of 1870 71 will not soon fade from the memory of farmers. In the midland counties hay is scarce and its value high. The dry summer and the bard winter have taught farmers a lesson that Victorian farmers ought to bear in mind, viz., that it is not well to dependent as regards fodder on the produce of one season. "An old haystack," it is said, "is both ornamental and useful."

The question of the utilisation of town sewage, surrounded as it is by so many difficulties, still continues to receive a considerable amount of attention. A lengthy paper on the subject was read by Mr H. J. Morgan, Secretary to the Metropolis Sewage Company, before the Institute of Surveyors, in _ which farmers are sharply rebuked for being so reluctant to deviate from our courses. Hitherto sewage farming does not appear to have been attended by any brilliant success, and the " Food Journal" points out the following as a new source of danger : " The researches of Dr Spencer Cobbold on the entozoa that arises from sewage irrigation are calculated to throw us into ■till deeper perplexity as to the course we should adopt in dealing with the sewage question. At the present stage of that experiment, irrigation seems to be the most profitable and the most practicable; but a new danger threatens us from this question, viz., the introduction into the human system of countless parasites and entozoa through the medium of cattle fed upon sewage irrigation grass. The worst ©f it is that cattle which thus act as 1 bearers' of these abominable interlopers seldom show signs of the disease in themselves, as they appear to have the capability of resisting the effects of the presence of the parasites, except when the sufferers are young, as in the case of calves. Again, so little outward signs of disease does the meat show, that butchers are perfectly unconsious of it; but Dr Cobbold has microscopically demonstrated the presence of thousands of entozoa in pork which to the eye appeared perfectly healthy. It is his deliberate opinion that there are now in this country thousands of cattle which are thoroughly meazled, and which cannot be said to be safe as food for man. The subject is so new, that we are at present ignorant of the effects or of the amount of damage committed by parasites; but it is worthy of the most careful study." In reference to the growth of flax, to which our neighbors in South Australia are devoting considerable attention, we have the following from a County Kilkenny farmer, writing to the Belfast Flax Extension Association :—" From my experience of the flax crop, I would advise every farmer to sow some, as I have found it pay on an average, since I began, seven years ago, nearly double as much as corn. If I had land as good as some farmers in this locality, and were to get the sam<> price as I have for the last three years, it would shortly pay as much as would purchase the fee simple ofthe^land." The " Agricultural Gazette" contains an illustrations of a novel mode of drying the sheaves of wheat and meadow grass in wet seasons. These are taken from the prize essay of Mr W. A. Gibbs, published in the transactions of the Highland Agricultural Society. The plan consists of placing the grain or hay to be dried in a chamber containing perforated conical tabes, through which hot air is driven by

means of steam or horse-power. The grain or hay is thus dried, it is said, at less cost than in the open air. The expense of drying a load of hay in one of those drying chambers being 3s whilst in the open air on a fine afternoon the cost or drying a load was 4s. We notice this simply as indicating the spirit of progress that animates farmers in the old country, but in the dry climate we enjoy such drying chambers are not needed. In fact, in the generality of seasons our grain and hay areapttobecometoodry. Thesarnejournal directs attention to the means adopted by the Royal Society for Che purpose of promoting agricultural education. These have hitherto been its exhibitions and its publications. In this way the produce of the soil and stock have been increased, and the current generation of farmers educated. Now through the prize farm system a more direct course is being entered upon, which it is calculated will excise importantinfluences, and be productive of good results. Our contemporary, after pointing out the duties of landowners to their tenants, concludes with the following suggestion :—" What a grand thing would be a sweepstakes among the landowners of a district possessing estates above 5000 acres, each putting down £loo—-with sufficient competitors to raise £IOOO a year, as a prize fund to be awarded by the Royal Agricultural Society of England. The cup, as an heirloom, would be more valued in a generation or two than twenty Emperor's Cups won on the turf." The history of the double furrow plough has been brought out at a trial before the Scottish Court Session. The pursuers in the action were Messrs John Fowler and Co., steam plough manufacturers, Leeds, and assignees of Thomas Pirie, of Nether Kinmundy, Aberdeenshire ; and the defenders were Messrs John Gray and Co., Uddingston, by Glasgow. Several witnesses were examined on both sides, among others Mr Pirie himself. It would appear that Mr Pirie took out letters patent for his invention of " improvements in ploughs," in 1868, and assigned the same to the Messrs Fowler and Co., in 1869. The trial lasted four days and resulted in a verdict for the pursuers on all the issues, the jury fin ding that "Mr Pirie was the true inventor of the invention, and that the defenders has infringed the. patent by using the invention." Thus the ingenious inventor of this boon to cultivators is not allowed to be.defrauded of the reward of his genius ; and we feel sure that every farmer who reads the results of this trial will feel pleased with the verdict. The cultivation of kohi rabi is attracta good deal of attention among British farmers. This root, which is a native of Lapland, resembles in its qualities the Swedish turnip-, and requires much the same sort of cultivation. It stands transplanting well, is extremely hardy, yields heavy crops of roots weighing from eight to ten pounds each; possesses fattening properties superior to the swede, and grow best on a light sandy loam. Kohi-rabi is much used lor filling in blanks that occur in the mangle crops, and we remember it being turned to account successful in this way by Mr Skilling at £he experimental farm, in the Royal Park. Foot and mouth disease appear to bj dying out in several counties where it was prevalent; but from the veterinary department of the Privy Council we learn that on the continent rinderpest is still spreading in France and Belgium, in defiance of the measures which have been adopted for its eradication. In the north, east, and western provinces of France the cattle plague is raging almost unchecked. In Normandy and Brittany it also prevails extensively. Across the eastern frontier the disease passed into Neuchatel, and rapidly infected several herds of milch cows ; but the dicovory of disease was promptly followed by the employment of means for its repression, and there is no information of the further spread of the ' plague in Switzerland. Cattle plague con- ! tinues to prevail in Gallicia and Trausylvana, and also in Poland. Prussia has so far escaped with slight loss. We find the following on the use of salt in the " Mark Lane Express" of the 17th April:—" A correspondent requests information on the application of salt as a top dressingfor barley. Looking upon this question as of considerable importance, aud knowing that the use of salt in agriculture is neither so well understood or practised as it ought to be, we propose as showing that common salt (chloride ot sodium) enters into the composition of all plants, especially forage or bulbous ones, in some of which—mangolds, for instance —the proportion of salt in the ashes constitutes from 43 to 53 per cent, or nearly an average of one half of the weight, the cereal plants containing a much smaller proportion, and it is therefore unimpared in fertility. The way in which salt acts ♦upon cereal plants is both direct and indirect : not only does it enter itself into the composition of the plant, but it prepares its other constituents for assimulation. It is found also that salt assists the decomposition of inert or vegetable matter, without injuring the growing vegetation; that it promotes the growth of plants on drained lands, although it is not suited to heavy undrained ; that it

attracts and retains moisture in the soil, rendering it less liable to be frozen; that salt and water are destructive to the wireworm, slugs, and other vermin; that it strengthens the straw of cereals, whilst it increases the weight and improves the quality of the grain. It is peculiarly adapted to root crops and barley, but is also beneficial to crops of all kinds in a certain proportion, and in certain localities. Thus it is not proper to apply salt to lands on the sea coast, where large quantities of it are deposited from time to time, in the spray from the ocean and from the saline atmosphere. Also in other localities, where a large proportion of the chlorides and soda are detected by analysis. Nor should it be repeated too often, or when salt has been employed in feeding cattle, by which the dung has been saturated with it, or when seaweed has been employed as a manure, the salt it contains being sufficient for every purpose of utility." HINTS ABOUT DAIRY COWS. The time for which a cow should go dry before calving varies with various feeders : but, as a rule, it may be said that the time is too short; the practice of milking the cow to within a very short period of her calving arises from mistaken notions as to economy—it being supposed that we make more by the milk thus obtained than by the improved condition of the animal if the milk is not taken from her. We say that this is a mistaken view for a consideration of the physiological aspects of the case will show that the cow and her expected progeny will be better for her being dry for some time before calving. This period should not be less than six weeks, but two months would be better for it; and it should always be remembered that the calf.in the later stages of its development in the womb, draws largely upon the cow for ailment, and which tends to bring her down in condition, if that is not kept up by judicious feeding. Now the question here-arises, what is judicious feeding at this stage of the cow's existence? Some deprecate very strongly the practice of keeping up the condition too high, fearing the after results of an attack of milk fever ; but in their fears of this they allow the cow to fall away so much that something will go wrong during her calving period. On the other hand, there are those who, in their fear of such consequences, and arising from such a case, in their anxiety to keep the animal up so that she may go easily through the trial of her calving, run into the opposite extreme, and have her in such high condition that milk fever too often supervenes. We believe that the happy medium lies between these two modes of feeding. One thing, if attended to, will always prove a great source of safety in the matter of milk fever—and that is, a good, healthy action of the bowels, kept up during the last week or two of the period previous to calving. This condition will best be maintained by giving the cow oilcake. If this is attended, even with a comparatively high condition of the cow, she may be expected to pass over the perilous period of milk fever with safety. Nature herself provides at the time of calving a medicine which gives a healthy action of the bowels at this critical period, or rather we should say two or three medicines—first the licking of her calf, which should always be allowed, as apart from the fact that the matter covering its body acts as an aperient, it exercises a fine influence upon the calf itself, for it promotes the circulation. Moreover, the act of licking the calf is such a pleasing one to the cow that it tends to keep her quiet and easy, and to have her in the opposite condition must tell prejudically on her state of health. Second, the first milking or " beastings" which the cow gives has a tendency if drank by the cow to act upon her bowels ; and it should therefore always be given to her. This also is a good reason why the calf should be allowed to suckle at least for a time, as the first milk has a good effect upon the system. The third and last medicine which nature has provided for the cow at this period is the covering of the foetus ; the cow if left to herself will invariably eat this, and it acts as an aperient. If the calf is not permitted to suck the cow the greatest care must be exercised in milking the cow regularly ; many a cow is lost by carelessness in this respect at this period, and this carelessness being often the cause of milk fever. If parturition has been difficult, and unfavorable symptoms have set in, we would strongly recommend the aid of a properly qualified practitioner to be called in. It is, we believe, most mistaken economy not to do this in the hope that they can manage well enough themselves. If the case has been one'of the ordinary kind, where she has gone well and the cow is as well as can be expected still care and attention are requisite. A good thing for the cow, and what will be much relished by her, will be to rub her gently down from time to time, and if the weather is mild a little "gentle exercise daily. Her food after calving should be in the form of mashes, carefully avoiding heavy meals of cold roots. The food should be of good quality, and care should be taken to give it in small quantity at a time, and the feedjng frequent. Attention

should be closely paid to the state of the udder. As the teats frequently get sore, washing them with tepid water, and rubbing the udder gently with the hands, and oiling the teats with olive oil will give the animal great relief.— u N. Z. Herald."

STEAM CULTIVATION. A highly important and very successful exhibition of direct traction ploughing, by means of Thompson's road steamer, and a new balance plough, invented by the Earl of Dunmore, was made in April, at Dunmore Park, before a committee of the Highland and Agricultural Society. It is well known that the india rubber tires on the wheels of the road steamer enables it to travel over any road, however soft; over sand, or ploughed land, or grass, or pastures. When the astonishing capabilities of the new traction engine were first seen in Edinburgh by the Earl of Dunmore, he at once perceived that the use of the steamer as an agricultural implement was possible, and that with its success a new and important era in steam cultivation would be inaugurated. Lord Dunmore was the first to order an agricultural engine ; and after various vicissitudes it was fairly tried on Tuesday week. The field to be broken up, lying immediately below the ancient town of Dunmore, had lain in pasture for forty years, and had not been ploughed since 1831. It had rained heavily all the morning, and all the previous night and day, and as the field had never been drained, it afforded ample opportunity for the verification of the evil prophecies of those who had declared that no traction engine could drag itself, much less a plough, over such land. The engine was, however, started, and dragging the plough after > it, steamed down the field in the easiest manner imaginable. When fairly|ftarted, the work executed was really admirable. The furrows, six inches by ten, were beautifully turned over, closely packed, giving a nice shoulder and a capital seed bed. There was not a hitch but what would have occurred to an ordinary sowing or double furrow plough. The plan adopted is to leave a headland of forty feet in which the steamer can turn. The plough of three furrows'is then drawn up and down the field till finished, the headlands being afterwards ploughed across as with the ordinary plough. This leaves forty feet at the corners of each field to be done by horse or other labor, instead of eighteen feet as at present. The engine turns at the headlands in thirty-two seconds, so that no time is lost; and on Tuesday the length of furrow turned over in eight minutes was 300 yards. Working ten hours a day, Lord Dunmore calculates that seven acres of autumn stubble can be ploughed per diem, at a cost of 2s 9d per acre; and in spring ploughing lea, five acres per diem, at 3s lOd per acre. When horses were put on to the land in the morning, their hoofs sank three inches; but the wheels of the steamer never sank more than from three-eighths to half an inch. Lord Dunmore calculates the expense of this engine at 19s 9d a day, but expects 208 days work in thejear. During the past month, with exception of four Sundays and a fast day, the engine was under steam every day. The variety of work, besides ploughing, threshing, and cultivating, which it has performed is interesting : pulling out tree roots, going to railway station with luggage, carrying heavy timber, cutting hay and straw, bruising oats, working saw mill, carrying drain tiles, pumping water (the steamer has pumped 20,000 gallons in seven hours), driving gravel for roads, driving coal, &c.

Making Sheep Faeming a Science.—The " Australian Trade Keview" says : The National Agricultural Society is laudably exerting itself to make sheep-farming a more scientific pursuit than it has hitherto been, and to force upon wool-growers closer study of those specialities of the soil and climate of their respective runs. " Not only has it for the purpose of its next prize list mapped the colony into five regions, according to climate, but it has addressed a long string of queries to wool-brokers and manufacturers in England, asking information as to the exact qualities desired in wool for different purposes, for a statement of the defects of Australian wools, and generally for any such suggestions that may assist the producers to provide more exactly the article that is wanted. If only a reasonable proportion of those to whom the inquiries have been addressed should be courteous enough to reply, we shall get a mass of information out of which we may pick hints of more specific utility than the somewhat vague suggestions of brokers' circulars as to the better getting up of the wool. The society is anxious to throw as much light aB possible the special capabilities of the different districts of the colony, so that every squatter may see more clearly than at present what is the best use to which his run can be put, may have a definite aim before him, and may proceed intelligently and systematically towards the realisation of that aim." Maetin's Bay.—The total cost connected with the opening up and establishment of the settlement at Martin's Bay is shown by a return, obtained on a motion by Mr Barrin the Provincial Council, to be £3878 9s lid, the items being as follows:—Survey expenses to March 31st, 1871, £2267 12s 2d ; Whitworth's pamphlet, £SO; road from Lake Wakatip to Lake M'Kerrow, £1560 17a 9d. The population is stated to be only 39.