AGRICULTURAL ITEMS

Shannon News, 19 April 1927, Page 2

AGRICULTURAL ITEMS

The way to increase the milk and butter-fat yield in the ordinary herd is to use a bull out of a heavy producing, high-testing dam. The largest sheep station in the world is at Tierra del Fuego, the most southern part of South America. One company shears more than 2,300,000 sheep every year.

The effect of phosphate on the plant is that of counteracting rankness of growth. Practically all cultivated soils are deficient in phqsphoric acid, so that fertilisers containing this ingredient are always required. The maintenance o£' healthy , cows .with normal udders is of great imp'brtance to the dairy industry. A cow that is healthy in every other respect but has a,-diseased or non-producing udder is worthless in a dairy herd.

Salt is a good appetiser. Give live stock plenty of it. Some farmers practice mix granulated salt with the grain rations, while others make it a point to see that salt licks are placed in the feeding pen. South Africa may not be troubled with rabbits or dingoes, but it has other pests in plenty. In the GraaffReinet district of the Cape Province 'alone, according to official returns, 2117 baboons, 757 jackals, 29 lynxes and 35 eagles were destroyed during 1925 at a cost in rewards of £829. Heavy retentive soils, if systematically limed,, need no application of potash. Light soils, however, are deficient in this ingredient, with the result, that unless some concentrated form of potash is added, it will be noticed that root crops, and potatoes in particular, will not produce good yields. '-'..'

One of the most valuable features of fresh pasture i« its succulence. Succulent feeds are valuable in. the ration, not only for the nutrients which they furnish, but especially for slightly laxitive effect. As a rule, their stimulation of appetite and their succulent feeds are. very appetising.