Farm Notes.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 4410, 13 May 1909, Page 4

Farm Notes.

[angoras as scrub CLEANERS. lvalue of the Angora goat as a pnger is evidently recognised in [rice, for the United States For* r Department has contracted for services of 3000 goats to clean >ut [s and miles of tangled under* pth and shrubs in one of the large pt reserves in California. The ns are to be cleared to provide [breaks for the protection of the kts. This stpp is falling in line t the belief of tbb 6heep and goat f. who hare been long advising [forestry officials that the grazing locks of sheep and goats was the Ist protection against forest fires, [ the only practical road to reaffortion of millions of square miles could only be made susceptible to ber growth through the continued & and droppings of the flock 0 , [re should be a lesson to this noun* in this use of the Angora. f»r a je area of scrub and undergrowth rasting good land here.

correspondent writes to the “ Dofion ” on the question of dehorning [caustic as follows : —“ Dehorning [ves by means of caustic potash may all very well for hand-reared |ves, which can be treated on the Let day when the button begins to [sent itself, but we cannot be getL mother-reared ones in every day two; Apart from this. I know a n Who cauterised some mother[red calves; the caustic got on to cotf’i flanks and udders, with the ult that some starving calves were be seen chasing cows with distended flers. who refused ?to a calf [jet within six feet of them,”

[The increased attention given to p production' of milk has much to [with the want of improvement in |r store stock. Any sort of sire is hsidered good enough so lonj£ as no Is calves and the cows are kept in [lk. It is quite impossible to estiLte the value of a newly-dropped [f without knowing something of its [rents, more especially the bull, and Ives got by a crossbred sire may be [ite as good looTritig when dropped those got by well bred bulls. It is ly after reaching the age of six or pe months and afterwards that the Wantages of the pure-bred sire ask themselve-,’ whilst the produce of nondescript bull gets rougher every fv after calfhood, that of the pure* Jed improves with age.