FARM AND DAIRY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 205, 27 February 1912, Page 7

FARM AND DAIRY.

MILKERS GETTING £2 A WEEK. Many dairy farmers, are now paying their milkers £2 a week, with board and lodging. This is an instance of Labor dividing the profits with Capital. Taking into consideration the board and lodging, this makes the wages of the' milkers £3 a week, a figure which puts their work on a high plane. But it is a figure that will not allow of mere stupid cowspanking. A farmer who is paying his staff wages at the rate of £2- a week must put a certain amount of thought into his and the best direction for this thought to take at the present time is in the direction of culling his herds. As a broad, general rule, we believe that where the family milk twothirds of the cows and the hired man "one-third," the one-third milked by the hired labor is done at a loss. Suppose the hired laborer milks twenty cows. TTiese average, we will say, £7 10s worth of butter-fat for the season, which amounts to £l5O. T.he hired man, if he has been retained for the full year, has cost £156, which leaves a loss of the feed consumed by the cows, plus £6. Against this is to be set the extra work done by the hired laborer, but this in most cases is of insignificant value. Prom present indications the price of labor is likely to rise still higher, and if the dairyman is to get the full reward: of his labor it behoves him to get his dairy company busy about the formation of a cow-testing association without further delay. Even if the milking of the whole herd is done by the family, the same argument applies, for it is equally unfair to keep the girls and boys of the family wasting their time milking a lot of scrub cows, when a little extra attention would enable the yield of the herd to Tie increased by '33 per cent.—Dairyman.

NEWS AND NOTES. One of the best things that can be taught to young men on the farm is to keep an account of all that is paid out, and of all that comes in as profit. There are no fewer than 60 plots altogether at the Waitaki Boys' High School experimental field in grasses, clover and fodder crops. Some of them, like Bokhara elover and sheep's Burnet, are doing remarkably well on the depleted grass country. Experiments. are being made by the Victorian Government with the woollybutt timber for butter boxes. The wood is white, and apparently free from resin or gum. It is, however, very heavy. To hit the horse with the whip on the head should never be done, as it may often have the reverse effect to that desired; besides using the whip in front of the horse's shoulder is not considered civilised, and it is cruel.

Many dairymen are now commencing to find out the advantages of small paddocks. Every properly-subdivided dairy farm should contain a sufficient number of grazing paddocks to ensure each being frequently spelled. The North Otago Times states that the Hessian fly is reported to have made its appearance amongst the Kauroo Hill crops, hut its depredations are not, so far, serious. The attacks of the grub can be traced by the broken and wittered grain stalks. 1 Southland farmer states that the turnip fly is worse than usual in the Southland district this season, and its ravages are the more harmful because of the slow growth of the turnips. It has been said that dairying without pig-raising is only half accomplished. The great virtue of the pig is that it will consume and turn into profit much of what would otherwise be wasted on the farm.

Small enclosures close to the milkingshed and round about the homestead are always numerous, and can hardly be too numerous.

In growing such crops as mangels, ( peas, pumpkins and potatoes, it is a good plan to make successional sowings or settings, as the case may be. A system such as this necessity of doing all the weeding at one time, as it can be extended over a greater period. The world's record in ploughing, according to an American paper, was eclipsed at Purdue University on Saturday, October 14, when three oil-pull traction engines hitched to one unit of 50 ; ploughs, turned over a stubble field at the rate of one acre every four minutes and 15 seconds.

The "one spray" method of controlling codlin moth is making headway in America. It is based on the presumpnion that the one indispensable requisite is that the inner calyx cup, of the apple, while still very young, should be filled with poison, so that the larvae endeavoring to eat their way into the fruit are killed.

The gradual deposition of the horse from the transport service in England has led to a serious decrease in the* growth of oats, and a corresponding increase in the area under wheat. The next oat harvest will be the smallest oat harvest ever known in England. It is only in ,the north of England, where much porridge is eaten, that oats are still being grown on a large scale. The consumers now are chiefly well-bred horses and hunters, and French and German farmers, who generally go to England for, good, oat seed. A few years ago the-despairing English fanner used to say, "Nothing pays but grass"; now it is %he'general saying that "nothing pays like-Wheat." •Of all'the "fodder plants growing in the 1 WaitaM High Scnool experimental field, Pufla''kale is : one of the most suc'oessful'afid promising. It is very similar in apsWrahce : to a- crop of rape, but at the sam'e age stands higher and appears to,yieM' r l a. gpater' bulk of fodder.