MISCELLANEOUS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 26, 22 July 1871, Page 9

MISCELLANEOUS.

" Grow your own cabbage seed" was the advice of an old successful market gardener, when asked by a beginner whom to buy cabbage seed from. This is certainly the best plan to adopt by those who grow cabbages for sale. Before sending any of your crop to market go through the patch and select a couple of heads that are large, solid, and of good shape. Always give preference in choosing for seed to those that have short stalks forming the heads close to the ground. Inferior quality of cabbages, or " sprots," have generally long stalks, and small light heads. Seed cabbages should be carefully pulled and taken to some sheltered spot, and " heeled in." This is done by opening a trench and placing the heads close together, and then covering all the roots, stalks, and about one quarter of the heads with a light coating of earth.

For the operation of transplanting, always choose the evening, or a dull day. Too much stress cannot be laid upon this, as the percentage of failures is found to be very small when this rule is observed. It is only reasonable to suppose that young, tender plants, on having their tiuy rootlets disturbed in transplanting, and their leaves exposed to the full day's sun cannot withstand the strain; but if removed in the evening their leaf action is not disturbed, they are sustained by the cool dew, and the normal action of the roots has commenced before the next day. This may appear a small matter, but it is one the amateur will find of great value, when notwithstanding the moist state of the ground, the heat of the sun is very injurious to newly transferred plants. The following is stated to be an excellent remedy for sore teats in cows :—To a pint of water add half an ounce of sugar of lead, and half an ounce of sulphate of zinc. Wash the udder well with warm water before milking, and with the lotion after. It is in such cases as this that the little milking machines introduced last year, in the case of a silver tube, should be employed. We believed they are to be obtained in Dunedin at a price of £2 to £3.

" The poor man" says one, " who undertakes to live by his wits on a farm that he has bought on credit, is not likely to achieve a brilliant success." No, indeed ! But the man who undertakes to live by his industry and his brains combined, will manage to get along, even in the hardest of times, and that too without being a large farmer. We know instances of people on 80 acres who are doing well, but neither lie in bed till nine o'clock nor spend half of the week on the streets of the town or village.

Pleuro-pneumonia is reported as unfortunately prevalent amongst the herds

depasturing in the northern portion of Victoria.*- The "Leader" observes:—lt will be interesting to our readers to learn that Mr M. Farrell, a resident in the neighborhood of Benalla, has written to the local journal stating that he had tried the Stockholm tar cure with success. This cure consists in stuffing the nostrils of the animal suffering from the disease with the tar, and also rubbing the same inside its mouth. Mr Farrell says :—ln the case of a steer badly affected I was induced to try the experiment, and all that I can say is that it has answered my most sanguine expectations; the beast being now thoroughly cured. I may add that it was in the very worst stage of the disease before I tried the cure, and that it was applied three times, allowing a lapse of four days between each application. If some of your readers whose cattle are infected would give this cure a further trial I am inclined to think that a very valuable result to the community at large will follow.

We clip the following from the Melbourne "Leader":—ln the Smeaton district, Mr Thistlethwaite, of Smeaton Plains, has lately been experimenting with different varieties of grasses, and has arrived at the conclusion that cocksfoot is superior to any other as a pasture grass for cattle. It not only grows very strong and quick, but it is very nutritious, cattle preferring it to any other. Prairie and rye grass have been tried on the same land, but the former is much preferable. Mr Thistlethwaite's experience of this grass, we may mention, differs from that of farmers in the neighborhood of Melbourne where it has been found that, although producing abundance of herbage, stock would refuse to eat it until compelled to do so from the scarcity of other feed. However the difference in soil and situation may account for this, and after all practical experience in each district is the best test. Indeed it is to be regretted that a greater number of experiments are not made with the different species of grasses in various districts of the colony and recorded as in this instance ;we should then,in the course of years accumulate a valuable fund of information.

Mr Gamble, manager of the model farm of Alfred Chenery, Esq., J.P., in the Mansfield district, has grown a fine sample of the white Lammas wheat, which he estimates very highly for its productive qualities. From 71b of seed obtained two years ago from Indigo he has now 40 bushels, all of which he intends sowing this season in the hope of obtaining an abundant yield.—" Leader." Shipment of Grain. —The following extract from a letter, under date June 26, from a Melbourne commercial house to a firm in Timaru, is of interest to farmers and to shippers of grain:—Wheat—We have sold your 21 bags, ex Tararua, at 6s 3d. Some of the wheat ex the same vessel was quite rotten. It sold at various prices, from 4s 3d to 6s 3d ; and if it were not that Adelaide is worth 7a 6d, it would have sold at very low prices. Since we sold, we notice a decline in Adelaide wheat; in fact, a dull market, and prices have a downward tendency. Oats, ex Tararua, we sold at from 3s 2d to 3s 7fd; but the quality runs very uneven ; and during delivery there is nothing but trouble and fighting between the buyers aud ourselves —they want to reject every second bag. English barley we sold at 4s. You ought not to allow the clerks of the steamers to disfigure your bills of lading by erasing marks and contents. We are bound to take oats, barley, wheat, or chaff, in fact, any rubbish they choose to give us; they are responsible for nothing. The Orwell has arrived, but Captain Worledge thinks that while the steamers continue to call at Timaru, the sailing vessels will get no attention ; and he thinks she would not pay. We would rather pay 2d per bushel more freight in a good sailing vessel than by steamer. Just fancy a steamer arriving during the night, and at daylight- putting on four gangs of men to pitch out 4009 Backs of grain on the wharf in wet weather. It is all landed before the letters are read ; and perhaps no letters of advice have come by her. The grain has been collected at Dunedin, Oamaru, Timaru, Lyttelton, and Wellington, aud there is a glorious confusion on the wharf—the weather rainy perhaps at the time. It takes nearly a day to get the bills of lading out of the Banks, meanwhile the grain remains on the wharf exposed. They never discharge under a shed. The only alternative is to put on a lot of drays, get a grain trier, pierce every bag, and take the best you can find. The steamer is responsible for nothing. It would not pay them to look inside a bag to see whether it contained oats or wheat —a bag of grain is a bag of grain. Despotism and Democracy.—The Grand Duke Alexis-Alexandrovitch, third son of the Czar of all the Russians, is about to start on a tpur to America, India, and possibly Australia. His Imperial Highness was to sail from Oronstadfc about the middle of May, in an Imperial yacht, accompanied by an escort of four or five vessels of the .Russian navy, and probably reached New York early in the month of June. The "New York Times" states that " the Diplomatic Corps, and particularly the Russian Legation, are busily engaged in preparing a programme of festivities, which in conjunction with those in course of preparation by the United States Government, together with the hospitalities that will doubtless be freely offered by New York and the larger cities throughout the Union, will combine to form a succession of grand ovations that will probably surpass in point of *eal magnificence anything of the kind thii country has ever witnessed.