Farm and Garden.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 226, 8 January 1876, Page 21

Farm and Garden.

DEAD LAMB SKINS.

Every flockmaster is lucky if he does not at yeaning time lose more or less lambs. When the lambs are from full blood or high grade merino sheep, the skin, if taken in its early stage, has a most beautiful coating of wool. All these skins are saved and dressed or tanned in France and Germany as well, and form an important item of trade, being used as linings for gloves, mittens, and other winter wears. It is safe to say of the present flock of sheep in this country, at least one half, or say, fifteen millions, are breeding ewes, and drop a lamb annually ; of these at least two and a half million rarely reach a week old. They are an unsightly nuisance about the barns and lot, often thrown upon the shed roof, or on stumps, or in the fence-corner. I venture of the millions of farmers who own sheep in this country, no one has ever yet saved the skin of a dead lamb ; and yet, how labor is used to render a disgusting mass useful and profitable ! Take equal parts of alum, salt, glauber salts, and half a part of saltpetre ; pulverise, and mix well; add about an equal part in bulk of the mixture wheat or rye bran. Spread the skin while green, and apply the mixture upon the flesh side ; roll it up, and place it in a dry, cool place, where it will be level, so as not to drain. After a week or ten days, if properly handled, it may be washed in soapsuds and slowly dried, rubbed with a blunt instrument on a table while drying. In the last stages a little whiting or chalk may be used. If the skin be dry, moisten it to about the consistence of a green one. After it is dried comb out the wool, and you will have an article useful in a hundred ways and for which you would pay the furrier a good round profit, judging from what the importer pays. The Frenchman is taught from infancy to consider time, when judiciously applied, as money. He finds a dead lamb, and spends a half-hour in skinning it ; the tanning mixture is next applied in another half-hour. When tanned, perhaps another half-hour perfects the dressing, and the unsightly skin has become of market value. So much for material wasted for the want of labor not made useful. I see these lambs skins almost every day imported from France or Germany. I saw a lot to-day that were invoiced by the purchaser at from 50 to 60 francs per hundred, and I am ashamed to say I have thrown hundreds of dead lambs into the manure heap to keep them out of the way of hogs and dogs, whose skins, if saved, would be equal to the best imported, though there used to be some from Eastern countries that brought higher prices. What I would like to impress upon my farmer friends who have sheep is to try the experiment of saving the skins of their dead lambs, and preparing them for use as directed ; and the young people will thank me for telling them how to get, at a cheap rate, a most valuable garment when winter come in. Boys, save the dead lambs’ skin, both for your own and my sake. Don’t be afraid of them. These skins will average about 50 francs per hundred, or 9 cents each. By the utilising of these little scraps of labor, is there any wonder the people in both Germany and France are constantly accumulating money among the laboring masses ?—T. C. Peters in Rural New Yorker.

THE WILD SHEEP OF CALIFORNIA

The Californian species (Ovis montana) is a noble animal, weighing when fully grown some 350 pounds, and is well worthy the attention of wool-growers as a point from which to make a new departure. That it will breed with the domestic sheep I have not the slightest doubt, and I cordially recommend the experiment to the various wool-growers’ associations as one of great national importance. The clothing of our wild sheep is composed of fine wool and coarse hair. The hairs are from about two to four inches long, mostly of a dull blue-grey color, though varying somewhat with the seasons. In general characteristics they are closely related to the hairs of the deer and antelope, being light, spongy, and clastic, with a highly polished surface, and though somewhat ridged and spiraled like wool, they do not manifest the slightest tendency to felt or become taggy. A hair two and a half inches long, which is perhaps near the average length, will stretch about one-fourth of an inch without breaking. The number of hairs growing upon a square inch is about 10,000 ; the number of wool fibres is about 25,000, or two and a half times that of the hairs. The wool fibres are white and glossy, and beautifully spiraled into ringlets. The average length of the staple is about an inch and a half. A fibre of this length, when growing undisturbed among the hairs, measures about an inch ; hence the degree of curliness may easily be inferred.

Wild wool is too fine to stand by itself, the fibres being about as frail and invisible as the floating threads of spiders, while the hair against which they lean stands erect like hazel wands ; but notwithstanding their great dissimilarity in size and appearance, the wool and hair are forms of the same thing, modified in just that way and to just that degree that renders them most perfectly subservient to the well-being of the sheep. Furthermore, it will be observed that these wild modifications are entirely distinct from those which are brought by chance ink) existence through the accidents and caprices of culture. It is now some 3600 years since Jacob kissed his mother and set out across the plains of Pandanaram to begin his experiments upon the flocks of his uncle, Laban ; and, notwithstanding the high degree of excellence he attained as a wool-grower, and the innumerable painstaking efforts subsequently made by individuals and associations in all kinds of pastures and climates, we still seem to be as far from definite and satisfactory results as we ever were. In one breed the wool is apt to wither and crinkle like hay on a sun-beaten hill-side.

In another it is lodged and matted together like the lush-tangled grass of a manured length, in another in firmness ; while in all there is a constant tendency towards disease, rendering various washings and dippings indispensable to prevent its falling out. The problem of the quality and quantity of the carcass seems to be as doubtful and as far removed from a satisfactory solution as that of the wool. The source or sources whence the various breeds were derived is not positively known, but there can be hardly any doubt of their being descendants of the four or five wild species so generally distributed throughout the mountainous portions of the globe, the marked differences between the wild and domestic species being readily accounted for by the known variability of the animal. No other animal seems to yield so submissively to the manipulations of culture. Jacob controlled the color of his flock merely by causing them to stare at objects of the desired hue ; and possibly merinoes may have caught their wrinkles from the perplexed brows of their leaders. John Muir, in the Overland Monthly.

PRACTICE AND THEORY. An account of a recent visit by certain jirorninent agriculturists to Tiptree, the celebrated farm of Mr. Mechi, published in the English agricultural press, contains some points of interest. The size of the farm takes the colonial reader by surprise. We are here so accustomed to areas of from 20,000 to 100,000 acres of naturally fertile soil being considered necessary by the squatter for his individual occupation, that his example has naturally spread to the average selector, who declares that anything under 640 acres is barely sufficient to live upon. Tiptree, the fame of which as a model establishment has spread to all lands, is 175 acres in extent, including fences, ditches, roads, and buildings. Its most prominent feature is the extent to which its natural producing capabilities have been multiplied by superior tillage, embracing a systematic rotation of crops. Although the natural quality of the farm is below the average of the soils in the United Kingdom, its produce of human food per acre exceeds the general average threefold. Although over 30 years in occupation, from 40 to 50 bushels of wheat per acre, and other crops in proportion, are not unusual returns. At the time of the visit the farm was sown as follows : —Wheat, 62 ; barley, 19 ; oats, 6 ; peas, 20 ; tares, 4 ; mangel, 6 ; cabbage and kohlrabi, 6 ; Italian rye-grass, 18 ; red clover, 14 ; permanent pasture, 6 acres respectively. The live stock consisted of 22 head of cattle and 216 sheep, and the average quantity of fat meat made annually for every acre of the farm is set down at 2Qolbs. The sheep are folded with shifting hurdles, so as to eat off the crops grown for them ; and the cattle are kept in covered yards for the purpo.se of converting the straw of the farm into manure, this class of fertiliser being found the most suitable for restoring the elements of plant food to the soil in the required proportions. Mi'. Mechi’s operations are instructive in various ways. His operations have been conducted in the early stages of his career in a manner more calulated to be of use to the nation than profitable to himself. Of late years, however, his farming has paid him. He entered at first into numerous experiments upon manner of tillage, rotations and kinds of manure from scientific directions, which did not in all cases turn out according to what he had been led to expect. This point is worthy of note in connection with the present consideration being given to the subject of how best to advance our agricultural system. It appears that Mr. Mechi, while giving all credit due to science, has been, nevertheless, indebted for the most part to practical experiment for discovering the system of rotation that throws the heaviest crops, is most remunerative, and sustains best the fertility of his soil. This rotation he gives as follows for crops on light land: —lst, red clover, mowed for hay, and then folded ; 2nd, wheat ; 3rd, barley, manured with 2 cwt. of guano and 2 cwt. of salt, and rye-grass sown with the barley ; 4th, rye-grass; sth, rye-grass (second year) ; 6th, peas, followed by white turnips, super-phosphated ; 7th, wheat sown down with clover. Rotation for heavy land—lst, red clover, mowed for hay and then folded ; 2nd, white wheat; 3rd, red wheat, manured with 2 cwt. of guano and 1 cwt. of salt ; 4th, mangel or kohlrabi, heavily manured and deeply stirred ; stli, wheat, with 2 cwt. of guano and 1 cwt. of salt ; 6th, peas and beans ; 7th, wheat ; Bth, barley or oats, sown down with red clover. Mr. Mechi’s experience, which is to the effect that the system he has found most profitable he has been compelled to find out by practical experiment to a larger extent than by scientific guidance, is identical with that of many others. The rotation recommended by him is, in its general features, also that found to be best by the more advanced agriculturists in these colonies. Some of the most successful farmers can express themselves positively upon such facts as that wheat grows best after clover, and white crop best after peas, and rye-grass best sown down with barley, their knowledge being the result purely of practical experiment. On the other hand, some of the most unprofitable farming has been that conducted on scientific theory. The lesson to be learnt is that science and practice must, in any educational system, go hand in hand.— Leader. LAYING DOWN PASTURE. Messrs. Anderson, Hall and Co., of Sydney, offer timely .advice on this subject. Of the common practice of sowing grass seed-—in-tended for permanent pasture—with a grain crop, they say:—We object to this system, as being against both the theory and practice of good farming, and specially unsuited to this country. The grasses, being cereals, require to extract from the soil similar food to the grain crop. Each impoverishes the other, and both are injured in their growth, but the latter outstrips and overshadows its weaker competitor, so that when the grain is cut, the

grass plants, instead of being bold and vigorous, are weakly and diminutive, and unable to bear the full force of the summer sun, to which they are at once exposed. Thus the pasture is never so good when sown with or after a grain crop as when following a root crop, or on clean new land. The new pasture should on no account be allowed to seed the first year, as the young plants are thereby severely taxed, and their future capabilities frequently materially injured ; besides which this maiden seed, when sown, has a great tendency to lose its perennial character.

When it is convenient the grass should be mown as soon as there is sufficient cut for the scythe. When this cannot be done a lot of young stock may be turned in as soon as there is a good bite. We prefer first grazing off' with young cattle, because their weight is lighter, and they are not so apt to pull up the youug plants as are full-grown cattle. Sheep are inclined to nip too close. The pasture is ready for work, and the usual stock may be turned in, as soon as the plants are sufficiently strong to withstand being pulled out. There is also some art in the after-manage-ment of permanent pastures so as to make them yield the greatest amount of food ; but we need not here discuss the relative advantage of constant or occasional grazing. Suffice it to say to either dairyman, farmer, or squatter, that by eating close the bite is always fresher, sweeter, and more nutritious than if allowed to grow long, yet it must always be kept of sufficient length to cover the ground well from the sun and catch the dew. Of mixtures of grasses for pasture, Messrs. Anderson, Hall, and Co., give the following : No. 1. — For Pasture or Fattening Paddocks.— For Ordinary Soils.

Perennial rye grass .. .. .. .. 15 Prairie grass .. .. .. .. .. 5 Rib grass .. .. .. .. .. 4 English grasses in mixtures .. .. 7 Lucerne .. .. .. .. .. 5 White and red clover .. .. .. 4 Sufficient for one acre .. .. .. 40 lbs. This mixture is admirably adapted for sowing a fattening paddock, on rich soil, near the home. The varieties coming to maturity at different times, yield a successional supply of feed all the year round. They also recommend the mixture to the dairy farmers, whom experience has taught it is impossible t® work to advantage without cultivation. A few acres properly laid down with this mixture will be found valuable. No 2.—For Pasture of Fattening Paddock for Dairy Purposes, on Rich Land. , lbs. Perennial rye grass .. .. .. .. 20 Cocksfoot .. .. .. .. .. 6 Prairie grass .. .. .. .. -. 5 Rib grass .. .. .. .. .. 1J Mixed English grasses 5 Lucerne .. .. - - - ■ .. 4 White Dutch clover .. .. .. 01 Red clover .. .. .. .. .. 3 Sufficient for one acre .. .. .. 45 lbs. This table is recommended by one of the first farmers in the Wingecarribee district, who has given much study to the most suitable varieties of grasses. In that district white clover spreads rapidly ; hence the scant supply named in our table. No. 3. —For Newly-cleared Land, Stations, and Improving Old Pasture Lands. lbs. Perennial rye grass .. .. .. .. 20 Prairie grass .. .. .. .. .. 5 Mixed grasses .. .. ■. • - .. 6 Cocksfoot .. .. -. .. .. 4 Rib grass .. .. .. .. .. 3 White and red clover .. .. .. 2 Sufficient for one acre .. .. 40 lbs. No 4. A Cheaper Mixture for Extensive Sowing on Large Areas. lbs. Perennial rye grass .. .. .. .. 30 Prairie grass .. .. .. .. .. 5 Perennial red clover .. .. .. .. 3 Perennial white clover .. .. .. 2 Sufficient for one acre .. .. 40 lbs.

AUSTRALIAN PRESERVED MEATS IN ENGLAND AND GERMANY. The following letter on the above subject has been addressed by a correspondent to the Brisbane Courier : “ Sir,—Having just returned from Europe, where, during a six months’ stay in England and Germany, I had directed my special attention to the progress which has been made by Australian preserved meats, will you kindly allow me to give you my impression on that important subject. “Notwithstanding the big figures which are continually kept before the eyes of the Australian public, it is a fact that the proportional progress of this article has been very small indeed in England. Though you see the nicely got up and full tins in many London provision stores, you don’t see a single empty one in the back yards of the dwellings of the working classes. “ But it was exactly on this point that the whole speculation was based—that the article would become an actual boon to the working and lower middle classes. Up to the present it has entirely failed to do so, and as causes for this result the following reasons may be given “1. That Englishmen of all classes apply the highest standard to animal food, i.c., meat.

“2. That their national cookery and taste are adverse to made dishes, and that the working classes and lower middle classes dispense entirely with soujis. “3. That an English housewife of the working classes is both ignorant how to prepare made dishes, and reluctant to servo her lord with a dish she knows he only looks upon as a makeshift,’ instead of an honest dinner.

“ It will be seen by the foregoing how, in all essential points, the Australian article meets with strong national and individual opposition in England, which, to overcome, much time and patience has yet to be spent. “ But while it requiries time to introduce an article in England which will yet become a boon to millions, why neglect other countries in the meantime ? It is certain that the article

would quickly domesticate itself in thousands of German households. It has done so already, it is because people there in dense ignorance as to the existence of it, in spite of the Vienna Exhibition and other abortive attempts at advertising. If only a quarter of the capital, together with Tallerman’s preaching, which was found necessary to expend in England to make the article known, had been spent in Germany, millions of Germans would now as little think of dispensing with Australian meat as dispensing with potatos. The ways and means of introducing Australian meat into Germany effectually are something different to those employed in England, but decidedly simpler, cheaper, and more promising as to results. The reasons for such supposition are as follows : “1. That the Australian article is in accordance with German cookery and taste in regard to made dishes, soups, &c. “2. That the Germans do not apply high standards to meat, but only that it should be wholesome.

“3. That a German housewife needs no preaching to show her what to do best with the article. “ 4. That the consumption of meat has increased among the German working and middle classes 25 per ceut. during the last twenty years. “ 5. That there is the utmost need for the article where most live stock are exported and the remaining meat dear. “ If all conditions favor the Australian producer’, let him export direct to Germany.— Yours, &c., “ Charges Geo. Bakthelemy. “Port Mackay, Nov. 3, 1875.”