FARM NOTES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 88, 2 April 1908, Page 4

FARM NOTES.

A plan recommended for the wholesale destruction of caterpillars is as follows:—Dissolve loz. ol arsenic by boiling in half a gallon of water, ■with loz. of washing soda, and half a>cup of treacle or a cup of molasses. Then stir in enough bran to absorb the liquid. It should be iu such a condition that | the particles ot bran will separate easily when distributed. Scattered in strips of half a chain intervals through crops I it is guaranteed to effect wholesale slaughter. Ewes were usually sold at lower rates than wethers on the London markets last year, owing to the fact that they are not included in the army contracts. Owing to Hie good demand for labourers on public works contracts in the Waikato, great difficulty is being experienced in securing them for farm work.

There is no place on earth where a labourer needs more skill than on the farm, and yet in New Zealand farm labour is a work which any man considers he is capable of performing. The South Australian lamb export season has closed. During the year 205,331 carcases of lamb and mutton were exported. These are record figures and considerably larger than last year's, which were 254,610.

A good deal of threshing was done in Otago during last week, and in almost every instance thc yields of both wheat and oats exceeded the anticipations of the growers. In the lower portion of Shag Valley wheat was averaging 35 bushels per acre, while the oat crops exceeded 40 bushels. With such good prices offering for grain, growers should experience a very profitable year.

The Clutha Leader hears that where threshing has been done in its district this season the yield was not bo good as the standing crop or the bulk indicated. The grain is not so plump and well-filled as usual; but there is abundance of straw, which has been rather short in recent years. The cost of making a twenty-acre orchard in British Columbia is variously estimated from £SOO to £7OO, according to the first outlay on land and the cost of local labour conditions. Care and maintenance for the live years, or until the orchard begins to bear, would be about £SOO, less the value of smaller fruits and vegetables, planted between the trees and the fifth year's return of fruit, which in all should pay the original cost of the trees, In the sixth year the orchard would produce £l7O worth of fruit, in the seventh year £OIO, and in the ninth £ll6O, after which it should pay a net annual profit of £25 to £3O per acre—an assured income for life of £SOO or £6OO a year. This estimate is, it is stated, justified by actual experience. Treat the hens kindly (says a writer). Never frighten them. Have your hens so that you can go among them without their showing any fear, If you don't believe this affects their laying, just try a flock of hens that may be laying well and go among them, or let a stranger get them nervous and scared. Keep it up a few days and see how your eggs will fall off. I have a nice Hock of buff pullets, and can go among them and feel perfectly at ease. My flock of Wyandottes are so tame •that I have to be careful and not step on them. They cat out of my hands or dish. They'know I am their friend, and feel contented ana happy in my presence. I would impress upon all who keep a large or small flock of fowls to aim at having them tame so fluey will not start at the approach of even a stranger. Kindness is best for the animal creation. It pays in more ways than one to be kind. A significant note in a late London market report;— Very little notice is being taken of quality of butter just now, the main desire among retailers being to get hold of the butter. 1 have seen a single cross of the ltomney given lo an English Leicester ilock with good results, says " Kusticus" in the Canterbury Times. The wool was rendered denser than before, ami liner, aud the animal was made bigger and hardier.

The speculative buyers of colonial butter, says a London correspondent, are getting huge profits just now, and those factories which have adhered to the cheapest method of marketing their produce—through reliable commission houses—are reaping golden harvests for their supplies.

Mr. Joseph Taylor, of Papauui, Canterbury, who was one of the most successful sellers of English Leicester* of the Canterbury Hum and Ewe Fair, hao sii far this season sold I'M) rams at an

average of 3gs., and during the last fourteen months his sales have num-

bered «00, the average price being 3gs. The Scottish agricultural professors have attaeked a huge question, and they are endeavouring to improve the feeding value of the root crops by breeding up varieties which contain a larger proportion of nutritious dry matter. Such succulent crops as yellow turnips, swedes, and mangolds consist of between 80 and !)0 per cent, of water, the balance containing all the sustaining portion of the root. It is sought to increase this balance, and consequently the feeding value of the roots. There is a wide held for investigation here with immense possibilities.

Bunny appears to have had a bad time lately at the hands of poisoners about Tiniaru, the weather being favourable for the carrying on of exterminating operations. A party of shooters went a few days ago to i place recently described by the Inspector of Stock as the plague spot of the district as far as rabbits are concerned, but had very poor sport. Plenty of dead rabbits, but not many live ones, were found.

Usually (writes the Mataura correspondent of the Gore Standard) Mataura in the month of March is one of the busiest of country towns on account of the number of strangers employed in the rabbit-packing industry and in the killing yards of the freezing worlds. Owing to the scarcity of freezing sheep and the low price ruling for rabbits, things arc quite different this year. Packing has not been started yet, and will not be this month, and compared with last year only a. few sheep are coining forward. This time last season these industries were paying in Mataura about £2OOO a month in wages, apart from what they circulated to the farmer and trapper.

There arc some beautiful crops of turnips at Grccnvale this year, says the Tapanui Courier (Otago). On the Hat between Kelso and JlcGillivrny's, and also on some of the ridges in the vicinity, it would be hard to find finerlooking root crops. Threshing is now proceeding briskly, and all the mills arc in full swing in various parts of the district. Oats are running very well, and the yield of corn is expected to be quite up to th t . average. Settlers on tireeulield Estate are reported to have good crops this year, and to be doing well. The promise of winter feed at Orenlield is also excellent, most of the turnip crops being well up to the average.

Whether the fiit-t of there now being gra-s in abundance to eat down warrants the advance in store sheep and lamb- remains to be been. Bays "Drover" in the Olago Witness. If the rains, besides making the grass grow, advanced the prices of fat stock, and inspired export buyers with conlidence, the advance would be justified, but at present the good rains in South Canterbury, Otago, and Southland have not had any such effect. In some instances lately, notably at the Otekaikc sals, the rains caused such an advance in store stock as to put about 3s per head into the sellers' pockets. The present state of the wool and meat market does not warrant any boom in store sheep, and so tar as I can see it is incumbent on fanners to exercise caution in buying stores. 1 am inclined to think the stock agents will make more money out of this business than the farmers who buy.