THE MAN ON THE LAND.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 8, 6 January 1913, Page 7

THE MAN ON THE LAND.

GREAT PRICE FOR SHORTHORNS. Some, great profits must have boon made by the cattle-dealers who took cattle from the United Kingdom to the Buenos Ayres sales last year. For instance, among Shorthorns, the bull Sunbeam’s Pride, bought at the Perth (Scotland) sales last February for 130 guineas, realised £3144; Prince Augustus, bred in Ireland and sold for 110 guineas, realised £3834; Dunmore Pearl, sold by auction in Dublin for 105 guineas, made £1818; and Cascade also bought at auction in Dublin for 50 guineas, realised £1454. These prices would seem to indicate reckless buying in the Argentine. LIVE STOCK IX THE UNITED KINGDOM. The returns of the number of live stock in the United Kingdom are not at all reassuring. The totals are 2,227,423 horses for 1912, against 2,243,724 for 1911, showing a decrease of 16,301; 11,869,342 cattle, against 11,825,984, a gain of 43,358; 28,874,090 sheep, against 30,402,428, a loss of 1,528,338; and 3,979,706 pigs, against 4,237,273, a loss of 257,567. It is only the increase of cattle in Ireland which prevents the totals from being all on the down grade. The loss of over a million and a half sheep in one year is the most serious item in the figures. MILK SELLING AND SOIL DEPLETION. It is well for all dairymen to know just what is the reflex effect on their soil of the methods they use. ‘Hoard’s Dairyman’ has often called the attention of its readers to the danger of soil depletion that comes if tlie whole of the milk is taken from the farm. If the dairy farmer knows the facts as they actually exist, and provides for it by the purchase of extra fertiliser, then all well and good. But if he does not, in a few years lie has greatly injured the producing power of his land. The older dairy districts of tho eastern States of America, where the whole of the milk was taken from the farm in cheese-making or rnilk-ship-ping, show this incontestably. The following figures show the real condition of things where the milk is all taken from tho farm. Take a cow, giving, say, 50001 b. of milk, there will be found 291 b. of nitrogen, 9.51 b of phosphoric acid, and 8i llj of potash. The market value of these fertilising elements is approximately 22s 6d. That means the loss in fertility to the farm per cow for each year. Now if the farmer is wise, knowing these facts, he will provide for these elements to be put back on the farm each year. It may be said that tlie growing of legumes, such as clover, alfalfa, cowpeas, etc., will keep up the nitrogen supply of the soil, • provided these crops are properly handled.