PROVINCIAL NOTES

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 81849, 21 September 1906, Page 2

PROVINCIAL NOTES

(By our Travelling Representative). Once again the country is wearing its spring tint of fresh green. Along the coast from Pungarehu to Waveriey the pastures arc looking very healthy, although the cold nights have stopped the growth somewhat, and there is not the abundance of grass that showed at the same season 'ast year. The country inland is more backward, and it will be rjuitc three weeks or a month before fe e d is plentiful. The Waimate Plains, particularly, are looking very verdant. Breeders of horseflesh were able to feast their eyes on some magnificent animals at the horse parade held at Hawera last Saturday, under the aus pices of the Egmont A. and. P. Society. The draught entire class was .argcly represented. This type i f horse has been made well nigh per feet in that district, but there are too many sires in the south end of Taranaki and some of them will have difficulty in filling their boolfs this season. This is rather unfortunate from a broad standpoint. Of course the more animals there are- the cheaper the fees, but cheap breeding facilities will not tend to improve the breed on the whole. If a first-class hors e has to cheapen his fees, he will be mated to all sorts of inferior mares. On the other hand, if a good horse can fill his list at a decent price only mares of a superior order can bo mated to him. In addition to the entries paraded there is a large number of two and three year old colts standing at owners' farms. This also will militate largely against good horses being bred. The Suffolk Punch horse, recently imported to Stratford, attracted considerable attention at the parado.

The lambing season has proved a good one and the percentage is higher than usual. This latter has been balanced by the larger mortality amongst ewes this spring. Sheep owners have had to dock the lambs early owing to their being too forward in condition from the abundance of feed to the ewes. If the lambs are too forward and their tails are not taken off they are likely 'to die off with over-richness of blood and fat around the heart. Docking, if done early, lessens mortality. A gentleman in southern Taranaki who had many years' experience as an orchardist and gardener in the Old Country, considers that entirely the wrong methods are being adopted •n attempting to cope with the potato blight. He bases his theory on facts, and many seasons of experience. In the Home 1,-nd the blight was wellknown thirty years ago and naturally many remedies were tried. The most successful treatment was not treating for the actual blight (as is being done by both experts and the ordinary kitchen gardener now-a davs) but rather making the tuber immune from the disease. It is a well known fact that if a human being be in good healthy concJiticn, full of vigor and cleanblooded he is not nearly so susceptible to disease, such as contagious fevers, etc., as a man who is run down and whose system is impoverished. So it is with the potato, according to this theory. "The most successful treatment, ho ho'ds is found in dressing the soil with a fair amount of gas lime (a refuse material obtained from gasworks). Before the 'and is ploughed a liberal amount of this material should be spread over the plot. The land should then be allowed to lie idle for a month or two, so that it can be invigorated and any harmful germs therein destroyed. Then the potatoes should be planted. When the plants are a few inches high a light dressing of gas lime should be spread over them. There is sufficient gas lime in the 'and to give virility to the crop without affecting the flavor and in the worst seasons of blight- at least a twothird crop can be relied upon." An ounce of prevention is worth atjout ten tons of cure, and on this score a'one the theory has much to recommend it.

The same authority has a cure for blight in fruit trees which, if tried, would prove efficacious. The theory of the treatment is similar to that advocated for the potato blight. The mixture used, however, is a secret and will probably be patented and placed on the market before next spring. The mixture is painted in a broad band around the tree and besides preventing codlin moth and other grubs from climbing the trees, it has the effect ofstrengthing the, tree to such an extent as to be able to fight ail attacks of blight. The writer was shown a couple of apple trees which up to a couple of years ago were infested with blight as badly as they could be, in fact,'these trees had almost succumbed to the blight attacks. The treatment was applied and the upper boughs lopped off. At the present time there is not a sign of blight on the trees. The traces of the bbght of former years are still to bs seen, but on the two-year's new wood there is not a vestage of any kind of blight. Last year the trees fruited very heavily, the fruit being altogether superior to that of former years.