AGRICULTURAL AND PASTORAL.

Southland Times, Issue 1662, 15 November 1872, Page 1 (Supplement)

AGRICULTURAL AND PASTORAL.

Stock osr Farms.— -In the Western States the importance of stock as an annual production is every year increasing. Markets are multiplying with wonderful rapidity in the new towns, and settlements sprioginff up all over this broad area ; the facilities for transportation are daily improving, and the call for meat in the older portions of our country and the world ia louder and louder every year. There ib a profit ; there must always be a profit in raising stock. There is a primary and a secondary profit. The secondary is the benefit done to the farm on which stock is raised. Stock is the natural renovator of the farm — the organised fertiliser. A well stocked farm, if well managed, will grow better - — more fertile every year. There is a | special reason for making stock a production of moat general farms. It is this , .—the odds and ends of every harvest, the gleanings of every field, the corners, edges, sluices, and by-places can be put to profit with but little trouble. Stock j will grow in the winter as well as in the summer ; will generally grow through all seasons; will always sell and bring money. It is almost a legal tender. If the farmer has stock he is almost sure of having something to turn off every year. A horse or two, a few head of cattle, a few sheep, a little wool, a lot of hogs — are most convenient articles with which to fill up a farmer's purae at the close of the year ; besides, it is often the case that a small amount of stock is almost a clear gain on a farm. We predict that Western farmers will find by experience that stock should be an annual production on almost every farm. The great call for meat has not come yet. It will be but a few years till the population of the West will be doubled, and then, in a few years more, will be doubled again. The population increases faster than farming facilities can. If farms are well stocked they are well prepared to meet the emergencies of the future. — Coleman's Rural World. Dottble Furrow Ploughs. — In a paper on this subject, recently read at the Haddington Agricultural Club, by a Mr Wyllie, we find the following sensible remarks: — It often happens that, in changing from one sort of work to another, gome difficulty ia experienced in setting the plough to the best advantage, and it is often, especially until considerable experience is gained, only after an amount of trouble and patient thought that both furrows are got quite equal, and the implement to work otherwise in every wav well. I have sometimes seen a very slight alteration effect all that was wanted after having been long puziled. Should any one be thinking of investing in double furrow ploughs, and not have hia mind made up to bear with some such petty annoyances, or not have one in authority under him who has energy and determination enough to make them succeed, I would caution him that he is not yet in a proper frame of mind to go in for them, as there is no denjing the fact that a prejudice exists against them amongst many farm servants, who, if listened to, will soon find lots of excuses for throwing them aside. This same prejudice has already, I think, been a great means of consigning the double furrow to oblivion, and, but for the greater perfection to which the implement is now brought, and the smart rents that farms are now fetching, might again succeed in accomplishing the same end. Manuring Gardens. — No garden can long continue to produce crops that will pay for the labor of cultivating them and the expense of seed that is not well supplied annually with manure. This is a fact well enough known to the least experienced even in such matters, but from observation we find that it is too often ignored in practice. Culture Deeply and MunrßE Highly. — Mr Mechi says — " My advice is, cultivate very deeply and manure highly, choosing those manures which best suit your soil." This is sound advice, but requires judgment in carrying out; indeed, the last few words about the choice of manures implies as much, and practice ia conclusive upon the < point. Now, I will give you a bit of my own practice. Last year I manured 29 acres of wheat stubble (on land that has been in my occupation only three years) with 7 tons of straw and water (rotten straw) mixed with 5 tons of London dung per acre, excepting a little over an acre, and that in the middle, and on a worse portion of the field. The land was then ridgeploughed and subsoiled 10 inches deep by steam-power. In the February following the beans were set by hand, and the field has been hoed and treated alike throughout. Now for the result against manure and no manure. The crop is good throughout, and there is no difference whatever in the appearance of the crop ; indeed, it is utterly impossible to find the unmanured spot. This proves that deep and thorough culture has a lot to do with the production of good crops. The manure, I know, must ultimately have an effect ; most likely in this case it will be la the wheat crop next year. Whatever the system of culture and manuring may be, it must be a system that will find bread and cheese for the farmer, without his being obliged to sell his wheat at 10s a quarter over the general averages. Mr Mechi's balance-sheet in 1868 shows that he did this. — William Smith, Woolston, Bletchley Station, July 23. A Maine paper states that three years ago the first cheese factory in the province was started. This was organised on the American system of association, the company being made up of thirteen shares of 100 dollars each. The second year, this factory gave a profit of 90 per j cent, on the capital invested. Lasfc rear, ( seven new factories were started, and Mr Young informs us that from a high hill upon his farm, be can count Bix factories within a compass of twenty miles. Each factory consumes the milk of from 300 to 500 cows, the season of making cheese being from four and a half to five months.

From nine to ten pounds of milk are required to produce a pound of cured cheese, the cost of making which averages one and a half cents per pound. The large number of factories now in operation has served to reduce the profit obtained from the business, but Mr Youag regards them as permanent features o£ the agriculture of the province, and as sure to operate favorably upon the system of farming pursued. The cheese manufactured is marketed in Halifax and St. John. It is of uniformly good quality, and compares well with that of Canadian and American manufacture. To Fasten a House. — "Where there is no hitching post handy, a horse • may be safely tied in the following manner, viz. : ' Take the reins and pass them round underneath the hub outside of the wheel, and give them a hitch on to one of the j spokes. If the horse starts, the reins are drawn up, instantly checking him, and as soon as he commences to back, they are instantly loosened. It is quite impossible with this method that a horse can go when he is not wanted to. The plan here described is not a new one at all, and we believe a fixture to attach to the hub to hold the reins has been devised, but it in no wise interferes with the method itself, which, though very simple, is very effectual. Exa-mentkg Houses' Legs. — In examining the legs of a horse, the purchaser should first stand with his face to the broadside of the horse as he stands on flat ground, and observe whether he rests perpendicularly on all his legs, having the natural proportion of his weight on each leg straightly, squarely, and directly ; or whether he stands with all his legs straddled outside of their true aplomb, or with all drawn together under the centre of his belly, as if he were trying to stick them all into a hat ; <Jr lastly, whether he favors one or more of his legs, either by pointing it forward or hy placing it in any position in which no weight at all, or a rery small stress of weight, is thrown upon it. A horse may apparently favor one foot accidentally from a casual impatience or restlessness. He is not, therefore, to be rejected because he points a toe once or twice. But if he seem to do so, s he should be constantly brought back to the original position in which he must bear equally on each foot ; when, if he be found to constantly favor the same foot in the same manner, something serious must be suspected, which gives the horse uneasiness and pain, though not perhaps sufficient in degree to produce present lameness. If the toe of a fore foot be persistently pointed forward, disease of the navicular, commonly known as the coffia-bone, is to be suspected, than which, no worse or less curable disease exists. If both the fore feet are protruded and the hind feet thrown back, as if the horse were about to stale, he has probably been at some time foundered. If he stands with all his feet drawn together under him, he is generally entirely used up, and what is called groggy. If he stands with one or both his knees bent forward and his legs tremulous, or with both his fetlock joints knuckled forward over the pasterns, one may be sure that however good he may once have been, he has been knocked to pieces or injured by hard driving and hard work. Supposing the horse now to stand square and true on all his legs, leaning his weight on each and all indifferently, with one glance at the horse in profile the side examination may be held as complete and satisfactory. That glance will ascertain whether the posterior outline of the hock-joint is nearly perpendicular, or whether it is angular or has a convex curvilinear protuberance immediately above the commencement of the ahank^bone. This curvilinear protuberance, if large, is a curb which will produce lameness, though not of anincurable sort; if not large, it is either the trace of a curb which has been cured, but may at any time return, or an indication of tendency to throw out curbs on being put to hard work, especially in heavy ground. Horses which have been curbed, or which have curb-shaped hocks, are generally to be avoided. — North British Agriculturalist.