FARM & DAIRY.

Taranaki Daily News, 6 November 1915, Page 11 (Supplement)

FARM & DAIRY.

XOTES FROM EVERYWHERE. AVheat following potatoes responds surprisingly to the manure and cultivation given to the root crops, and the same tiling applies to apples with beet.

A number of Scottish-bred Shorthorn hulls sent to the Argentine by Mr. Donald AlcLennan averaged £B7O, the highest price being £?H4O.

In the ''landseliaften" system of Germany a number of farmers pool their credits, borrow on the combined resources, and loan money to the individuals in the association.

Tile island of Guernsey, the original home of one of the most famous breeds of dairy cattle, is only 9"/. miles long and seven miles wide, containing 10,000 acres.

By the Tlegelund method of massaging the udder, after cows were supposed to be milked dry, an average increase of lib of milk per day per cow was obtained from 142 cows.

Ninety per cent, of the calves which die before they are six weeks old either die from indigestion, due to ill-feeding, or from infection, caused by feeding from dirtv buckets.

One of the prime factors in country life is the ''getting on" with your neighbors "People are just people anywhere," and it is a good plan not to criticise the neighborhood and its ways.

Milk which is pasteurised to a high temperature has a slightly-scalded flavor. Boiled milk is a little sweeter than raw milk, and is sliglitlv darker in color. This is caused by the lactose, or milk sugar, becoming charred and converted into a substance resembling caramel. Milk which is boiled or pasteurised is not so digestible as pure raw milk.

All measures which increase natural fermentation in the soil are favorable, and ploughing in the stubble in the autumn has a very good effect. After the seed is drilled the roller Should be used with caution, as the rolling is apt to increase the capillary action, which brings the moisture to the surface and favors evaporation. Harrowing, on the other hand, is good, as it has an opposite effect.

Tlie greatest loss, probably, in the manure made on a farm is from the loss of liquid voided by the animals when tied up in their sheds, and which is allowed to run to waste down drains and into ditches. It has been calculated that 1000 gallons of cows' urine if applied skilfully to grass land would have the same beneficial effect as would be obtained from the application of 2cwt. of the best Peruvian guano. Indigestion in horses like the same trouble in the human being, is very common and productive of a multitude of ills and afflictions. Treating indigestion in the four-legged animal is about the same as trying to cure dyspepsia in the human being. The more one uses drugs, as a rule, the more the need. The logical course in both instances is to endeavor to discover the cause, and the rest is easy.

The latest claimant lor the honor dE champion dairy cow bf the world is "Minnie Cowan/' a purebred Guernsey owned by 0. C. Barber, of Ohio, U.S.A. She lias a semi-official record of 24,0031b for twelve months, equal to 2400 gallons, and of a butter-fat value of I'ODS.ISIb. She is ten years old, and her largest milk yield in twenty-fonr hours was 82.3 lb. In seven days she produced Sfio.Slb milk, containing 24.441b of butter-fat.

Rabbits are reported to be unusually numerous in Southland this season. Labor is scarce, and trapping may not have been carried out quite as diligently as usual, but those farmers who have neglected this all-important feature of farming in Southland are certainly making a rod for their own backs (says the News).

It is self-evident that the war caused as great a dislocaton in the cheese trade a3 in that of butter; but the rise in the average prices of cheese for the past season was greater than in the case of butter. The increases were as follows: Butter—Australian, 17.6 per cent.; New Zealand, 17.3 per cent.; Danish, 14.8 per cent.; Siberian, 17.9 per cent.; French, 6.5 per cent. Cheese—Canadian, 22,6 per cent.; New Zealand, 28.2 per cent.

Notwithstanding the substantial increase of 12,245 tons in the import of cheese in Great Britain last year—chiefly from the United States of Americaprices have advanced even more markedly than in the case of butter, showing that though interruptions in shipping were just as prevalent, there was a greater world's output of cheese than in the preceding year, and that there were ample outlets for it all.

The land intended for a potato crop should receive a liberal dressing of farmyard manure. The reesarches of chemists have shown that a crop of six tons of tubers extracts from the soil 471b of nitrogen, 211b of phosphoric acid and 701b of potash. If we compare those figures with the amount of constituents taken from the soil by a wheat crop — about 331b of nitrogen, 161b of phosphoric acid, and 101b of potash—we get a good idea of the heavy feeding capacity of the potato crop, particularly as regards potash.

''The best manure you can use for your orchard is the plough and harrow," declared Mr. A. Bailey Mansfield (Government orchard instructor) 'to a meeting of Birkdale fruitgrowers recently, when addressing them relative 10 tomato culture. It was important, he added, to keep the surface soil loose in order to retain the moisture in the ground. To exemplify that it was not necessary to use water where this treatment of the soil was carried out, he gave a demonstration of the rapid evaporation, of liquids in hard soils i and the comparative slow evaporation in loose soils. He used three pieces of loaf sugar as an illustration, and covered the tops of two of them with granulated or table sugar. Ink was then applied to the bottom of all three, and rose quickly to the top of the hard sugar, but the ink failed to reach and so discolor the loose sugar on top of the two other pieces. The lecturer stated that it would take till the following morning for it to do so. The respective lumps of loaf sugar represented (1) ground in ordinary condition. (2) ground after It was ploughed, and (8) after It was ploughed and subsequently harrows!

Wet paddocks may often be dried by running a drain to cut oft' the soakago from higher ground.

At the end 01" last month there was a sharp rise in the values of both chart and potatoes in Western Australia. Good clean sample of potatoes were quoted at £lO, and oaten chaff was selling at £8 12s (id, prime wheaten chaff £lO 10s.

The Birmingham Fat Stock Show, which has been held uninterruptedly for sixty-six years, is to be abandoned this year. The council of the Society came to tills decision 011 account of the fact that Bingley Hall will not be available, and there is 110 other building in the eitv which possesses accommodation for an exhibition of such magnitude. The building has been taken over by the army authorities, who, owing to! military exigencies, are unable to give tip possession for the necessary period to enable the show to be held.

The ration strength of the army in England is placed by a staff officer "as no longer a secret," at 2,000,000 men, and as the daily ration of meat and bone per man is l'/Jlb this means a supply of 77.500,0001b a month, equal to 1-29.1 GU oxen of fiOOlb a month. He thinks ',Ub per week could be deducted, making a saving of one million lb pelweek. It is quite certain than 11,/.lbI 1 ,/.lb of meat and bone per day is an extraordinary generous allowance, and more than %lb could be saved a week without anyone being the worse.

Traps for blowflies:—Collect all petrol and paraflin tins you can get hold of; into each of these put about a handful of sheep-dip powder—say one packet to six tins; then about three-quarters fill with water, stirring up and mixing thoroughly; then put a good-sized piece of meat or oven skin into this mixture, letting it soak well; then hang your tins up. in trees above the reach of stock or dogs. A portion of the meat must he above water level, aad a. portion in water in the tins, so that (lies can be attracted by the smell. Skim off flies every few days, and stir up dip with the meat or skin, so that the meat keeps ,1 certain amount of the dip on it. The dip holds good for about six weeks to two months, when renew.

Glasgow has created a sensation in the meat world by establishing three shops for the sale of horse flesh. These are owned and operated by Belgians, and were opened with a view to catering for the requirements of the refugees of that nationality now resident in Glasgow. In normal times Belgians are large consumers of horse flesh, and prior to the outbreak of war a large business was done with the Continent in old horses, which were sent across to be slaughtered for food purposes. There is said to be nothing to complain of on tho score of the flavor of horse flesh, and with a window full o! nicely-cut steaks at 5d per lb, and with beef steak at least four times the price, it is not surprising that the demand for horse flesh in Glasgow is gradually increasing.

Tn 1000 certain statisticians reviewing the wheat fields of the world, declared that the supplies would be overtaken by the demand in 1911; but other lands were opened up and the supplies kept in advance of the demand. Still the fact remains that the demand is really overtaking the supply. For example, in ISBO the United States had 38 million acres under wheat with a yield of 4!)9 million bushels and in 1910 the acreage was 4">,700,000, and the yield 621 million bushels, but while in the period the increase in wheat was 35 per cent, the increase in population was 83 per cent. In 1910 the increase in wheat was 12 per cent, over 1900, but the increase in population was SI per cent. That means that the United States has less wheat for Europe. For the three years 1907-09 the United States exported wheat and wheat-flour to the value of £82,500,000, and in 1910-12 to the value of £51.250,000, or a decline of £31,250,000.

No more striking proof can be afforded (says the Live Stock Journal) of the great improvement which has bee?i effected in the breeding and feeding of farm animals during the past quarter of a century or so than that which is disclosed by the early age at which cattle are now fattened and finished off for the butcher. Less than a generation ago feeders never thought of finishing their stock until they were three and very often four years of age. Now adays quite a largo percentage of our best beef cattle make their way to the block by the time they are two years old, and we know a good many feeders who made a special feature of having animals finished off for the butcher when they are from fifteen to eighteen and twenty months of age. Most of our lipst feeders reckon that the most profitable age at which to finish off is when the animals are from twenty to twentyfour months old, because they find that when properly bred and cared for they will by that time give a better yield for the food consumed by them than they will at any later period of their existence. Our feeders have found out that their only chance of holding their own is by the production of the very best beef at an early age, beef which, while not costing much extra to produce, is capable of realising a good deal more per cwt than the same beasts would fetch if kept under the old conditions.

The advantages to be derived from the practice—nowadays too often neglected—of periodical applications of lime have been described by no less an authority than Mr. Hall, o£ Rothamsted Experimental Station, to be as follows: (1) It improves the texture of the soil by coagulating the finest particles of the clav and rendering the land drier and more friable. Drainage goes on more readily, the land is warmer, and it is more readily worked to a' good tilth. It is difficult to exaggerate the value of this action of lime on the heavier soils; it often means than it is possible to secure a seed bed when unlimed land is still too wet to work and the character of the root crop, particularly 9wedes, depends more on securing a good tilth than on manuring. (2) The insoluble reserves of nitrogenous and potassie material in the soil are brought into action and rendered available for the plant. (3) All the leguminous crops usually cultivated on a farm flourish much better when there is a good supply of lime in the soil. Clover, in particular. U very intolerant of acid soil conditions, and is much more subject to clover sickness when lime is deficient. (4) It seems to be established that the soil organism which fixes nitrogen without the acid of leguminous plants, and is a great factor in the gain of fertility when land is laid dpwu in grass, cannot develop properly unless there is a good supply of carbonate of lime. (5) Turnips are always liable to "flnger-and-toe" when lime is deficient In the soil.