Notes and Gleanings.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 205, 28 May 1887, Page 3 (Supplement)

Notes and Gleanings.

Big Horses. — A correspondent in the Me of Wight writes' to the Sporting an<£ Draviatic News : — "I was much interested by your notes of January 22nd with reference to the big Australians, having myself a mare of the following dimensions : 17.2 good 6ft. Sin. girth, forearm 18fin., cannon bone (under knoo) 9§in., length from between ears to setting on of tail Bft. The mare is in low condition with mud fever, so that I expect she would measure better when ahe gets harder. She is very clever across country, and goes in good form. By Claremont, dam by iittlecote, out of a Charleyboy maro, and was bred at Belaay, Northumberland . The only fault I can find with her is she is too big, but one mußt not look a gift horse in the mouth. I broke her to saddle and harness at three years old. She threw me a nice looking foal^ last summer, and I am hunting her this winter. Although not so big as the Australian, I doubt if there is a bigger in this country." Four-homed Sheep. — Bit Frederick Milbank a few months ago sent to Land and Water a photograph of a stuffed ram's head that had been beautifully set up for hint by Messrs Ward, of " Piccadilly. Sir Frederick originally purchased a few of the breed of four-horned sheep in the island of North Uist, Outer Hebrides, and has now a small flock of them running in his park. The photograph is that of a five-year-old ram he had killed about two months ago. The measurement of the upper and straight horns from tip of one to tip of the other is thirty and a half inches, each horn being from the head to the tip nineteen inches. The curved horns, measured from the outside, are each seventeen inches. As he has never been able to ascertain, after every inquiry, how these sheep ever came to be inhabitants of North Uist, and as they are not known to exist, so far as he can ascertain, in any other part of the Briti&h dominions (most certainly not in the adjacent islands of the Hebrides), the question arises, are they indigenous to this one island from, whence he purchased them ? The sheep are about the size and weight of the ordinary black-fnced Scotch. Fertilizers. — You find farmers, says a practical wiitcr, buying cheap fertilizers, thereby expecting results, but they are dis- | appointed. The beat is the cheapest They also neglect to make use of the manures which can be properly made by applyingelbow grease on their own farms. If plenty of ground plaster is used night and morning in the stables, and liquid manure collected in a well and not allowed to enrich the turnpike and country roads, making gullies down through their fields, benefiting nobody, they cannot say it is an ill wind that blows no one any good, because in this case it is a downright waste. Farmers' manure piles, in one sense, are their bank to draw from, and to spread upon their fields to pay to the soil what kas been taken away by the different crops. Whet* they buy fertilizers it is like putting their note in hank for discount. It must be> all paid back with interest. Therefore, the more farmers or merchants can do without borrowing money, concentrating their power, the richer and happier will they be. Farmers are complaining of hard times, that they cannot get much for what they raise for tho market — the city peoples get all the profits. If farmers would keep a cash account and a profit and loss account, at the end of 1887 I do not think they would complain ; they would be monarch of all they survey. Killing Canada Thistles. -F. D. Curtis writes that he has tried all kinds of experiments in killing Canada thistles. "Seeding heavily with clover and mowing it, is one of the best. The poorest way to kill them, and the best way to spread them is to put the land in hoed crops. Every little broken joint makes a new thistle and starts a new bed. Hence the le&s they are disturbed the better, unless the ground is ploughed so frequently that they cannot grow at all, and this extra labour is so out of joint with one's inclination that it is seldom done." Value of Pedigree Blood.— Every drop of thoroughbred blood that is infused into oxir stock is profi t able. It is not always practicable for a farmer to enter upon thorough breeding, but it is generally practicable for him t-t grade up, and no farmer who tries it will over i egret it. A thoroughbred male of all kinds of stock will be a most excellent investment for the general farmer ; and where for any reason the purchase of a thoroughbred by an individual is not desirable, a number of farmers in a neighbourhood might join together and make the purchape. And where it is not practicable — and in some caees it is not— to procure such an animal, or its services, the only advice to be given is to breed up as well as it can be done by the selection that can be made either from the farmer's own herd, or from other herds* in the neighbourhood. Country boys and School Board Education.—lt is quite recently that we criticised in The Farmer tho value of our state school system of education with respect to those j whose natuial career should be that o£a country settler or whose best chance of honest independence would be found in. tho acquirement of some useful handi' craft We notice that in Great Britain the subject is attracting the attention of practical men, and a thoughtful writer points out that the education of the board school is not all that the sons of agricultural labourers requite, if they are to followin their fathers' footsteps and till their native soil. The time, he says, has arrived when they should at least be taught some knowledge of agricultural matters, whicli would induce them to take an intelligent interest in their work, instead of, as at present, being educated largely at the cost of the farming community, for employment in large towns. Until recently, boys began to work on a farm almost in their infancy, and by commencing so young became accustomed to the monotony of farm routine. Now all this has been changed Boys da not leave school until they are nearly fourteen years of age, when they are devoid of any intelligent interest in the work they are called upon to do. Gas- lime as Manure.— This substance should be freely exposed to the air for two or three months before it is applied to any soil on which is a growing crop ; because, beside many sulphide?, it contains a compound of sulphur and cyanogen which is very deadly to plants. In anticipation of a turnip crop, it may be applied to the fallow up to say, February, which would allow sufficient time for oxidation to alter the poisonous qualities of the cyanogen. It is r perhaps, best to slightly harrow it into the stubbies after they have been ploughed* because in this case the ammonia— or a portion of it -resulting on the conversion of the cyanogen will be retained in the soil if there are in it lime, salt, kainit, or substancescontaining bases on which the ammonia can. form as nitrates. This simple view of £t may be borne in mind in making it into composts ; for unless there are substances on which the ammonia can form, it will combine with carbonic acid and escape into the air. The compost should therefore contain a little superphosphate, salt, or kainit, or even a small portion of old lime. But in making a compost heap it must be kept well away from a growing fence or the roots of valuable trees ; or it will kill them. It is a most effective substance for the destruction of fungoid and iasect pQBts in tha soils.