FARMERS’ COLUMN.

Patea Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 960, 17 November 1882, Page 2

FARMERS’ COLUMN.

For two weeks chicks should have soft food ; after that there is nothing better than damaged or broken rice if it can be had cheaply. Cracked corn and millet are also good. Have a movable coop of laths with an entrance large enough to admit only the growing chicks, and place the food so that the grown fowls cannot reach it.

The , statement that grain absorbs enough moisture on a son voyage to pay. lire freight charges has been to some extent confirmed by experiments made at the Californian Agricultural College. Various kinds of grain were placed in a moist atmosphere, and the increase in weight was noted. The greatest increase was noted in the first twenty-four hours.

There was a u day out,” among the. directors, shareholders, and friends of (he Ashburton Cheese Factory Company at Flemington on Friday, says the Lyttelton Times, on the occasion of the ; public trial, of Hie machinery. A vat of 200-gallons of milk was transformed into cheese in the presence of about 100 gentlemen, who also partook of lunch .in a marquee on the factory grounds.

. The August crop returns of the United Stntes-Department of Agriculture show that “ the winter wheat has harvested a good crop, and that the spring variety is in a condition higher than for several years. It is somewhat late, but was nearly ready for harvest at the date, of return. It is quite probable that the product of wheat crop, without loss by sprouting after harvest, will slightly exceed 500,000,000 bushels. Unless very valuable as a breeder, a hen has survived her period of usefulness after she has entered upon the third summer. As a pullet she is at her best, so far as egg-laying is concerned, and will earn the greatest profit in this respect for her owner in her first year. During her second year she is most valuable as a breeder, and for this purpose alone it may pay to keep her over a second winter, but unless kept as a pet for the good she has done, or her excellence as a breeder has been fully demonstrated, old hens should be despatched during the third year.

The fine young Lincoln ram exhib;t e( j by Messrs J. find S. Austin, M onnt Pleasant, at Melbourne and-. Ball which took first prize in bis class at both places, has been shorn since the Ballarut show, when he cut a fleece w e jg},. iug 201 bs of remarkably clean ] wool. This is perhaps the heaviest fleece ever cut by a ram of his age (about 13 months) in Australia. The staple measured 15iu., and the quality was all that could be desired. The ewe from the Mount Pleasant flock- that took champion prize at Ballarat cut a fleece weighing 201b, and a six-tooth grass-fed ewe from the same stud that was shown at Ballarat yielded a fleece that weighed 19!b. Three ewes, shown at Ballarat by Messrs J. and S. Austin, cut fleeces weighing 191b, 161b, and 151b respectively. The first two. were six-tooth, and the last four-tooth.

A writer in the Rural New Yorker says : “ Talking of health of poultry, among the'many things recommended for keeping bifds in good trim is salt. There is a prejudice ngaint- this useful articleonthegroundthat.it makes the flesh tough and hard, but this is a fallacy. If poultry were fed with salt food to that extent they would die before it was reached, as the Irishman would put it. There is no doubt that salt is good for fowls, given in moderation—in about the same proportion as some people mix sulphur with their fowls’ food. Flour of sulphur should bo sprinkled in their bran and pollard or soft mash about three times a week in summer, and not quite so often in winter. Salt might be administered in the same way, but it should not be given in conjunction with the sulphur. It would be better to give the sulphur only once a week, and then in a rather-stronger dose.

In’drying a cow from milking, the milk should be drawn in part once a day, as long as any milk can be procured. If this is'not done and the milk is left in the udder, it will curdle and spoil and cause trouble in the udder, which will be inflamed.. The hard, clotted milk in the udder then turns to impure matter, and injures the delicate coating of the fine milk veins and the milk glands. If this condition of things is passed unnoticed and is not relieved, the glands and milk veins are destroyed and their substance passed off through the .teat as matter Until in time that part of the udder is wholly gone and shrunk up. When this happens and the cow comes in again there can be no milk in .this tent, because the milk glands which secrete the milk are gone, and no milk can come, any more than sight could come to any eye that had been diseased and sloughed away in matter. There is no help for such a case. But it could have been prevented if care had been taken to dry the cow off thoroughly before she was left, and then to watch her very closely. One should have his eyes about him. The sale of Mr C. B. Fisher’s Maribyrnong stud of shorthorns in Melbourne realised in a two days’ sale, 30,000 • guineas. The first animal sent into the ring on the second day was the grand sire Bth Duke of Tregnnter, bred by Colonel Gunter of Wetherby Grange, and imported by Mr Fisher. This bull having the advantage of a double strain of the famous Duchess blood through his dam Duchess 118 th, and his sire the 3rd Duke of Collingham, was the object of keen competition among the stockbreeders present. He was started at 1000 guineas, and advanced rapidly by 100-guinea bids to 4000 guineas, at which sum he was knocked down, amid cheers, to Mr Samuel Gardiner, of Bundoora Park. This is by far the highest price ever paid for a shorthorn bull in the Southern Hemisphere, and the figure has only on a few occasions been exceeded in England.. One cow sold at 750 guineas, being bought by Mr Gardiner.

A writer to a Southern paper says “ very few horses would have sore shoulders if owners or their men would spend say ten minutes a week in scraping off the dirt from the collars, which has been accumulated by perspiration. After thoroughly scraping take some blunt instrument and beat, the collar for a minute or two, which will make it as soft as when new. I have seen it done and have-done it to advantage. 'Saddles may also be treated in like manner.” -To this we would add that the shoulders of horses; when chafed should be thoroughly washed with soap and warm water, and after being dried should he dressed with fresh lard. This treatment has always been found efficacious, and we can thoroughly recommend it.