FARM & DAIRY.

Taranaki Daily News, 13 November 1915, Page 10 (Supplement)

FARM & DAIRY.

It is reported that a farmer north of Ashburtoii who has just tailed his lambs has only secured 40 per cent.

Unless a sow is purebred and an exceptional individual, it will hardly pay to keep her if she will not rear large litters.

The eandle power of the sun is represented by a string of figures beginning with 18, "and followed by no less than 27 noughts.

Good handling does not consist in breaking' horses of bad habits. The height of the art is ill anticipating a bad desire, and in destroying the desire before it takes more definite shape in action.

The draught stallion should have good size, and he must have energy and fine action. The big, sluggish draught horse is not wanted on the market, and should not be bred to reproduce that type.

Colic, or gripes in the horse is not an infrequent trouble. In 99 per cent, of cases it may be written down to digestive trouble, probably arising through bad management. Sudden changes of diet frequently lead to trouble. The horse turned out from the stable to green food of a luxurious kind is either purged or blown.

The term "liirsel" is applied to one feature of pastoral farming in the Old Country. It applies to hill shepherding, and is used to denote the sheep put in charge of a shepherd. The number of sheep to a hirsel varies, and may extend to five or six hundred breeding ewes.

All parts of Southland look well this season, but none of the province appears better than the Edendale district. There plenty of stock is being carried in the paddocks, but grass is abundant. Growing crops look well, and this district is again showing what a generous soil it has when climatic conditions are at all favourable.

The milking sheep, which is kept largely for cheese-making on the Continent, is a variety unknown in England or the colonies. From a gallon of milk rather oyer 21b of cheese may be made, In an average year it is computed that a milch ewe will return about 20s, this sum being made up by the lamb, the wool, and the cheese.

At the annual meeting of the American Ayrshire Breeders' Association, held in New York, it was reported that the records for the past year showed 1509 cows and heifers, with an average yield of 93681b of milk and 362.951b of fat. The average percentage of fat was 3.87. During the year 435 animals had qualified for advanced registry, a gain of 105.

The old term "a hide of land" is used in Scotland to indicate the amount of land which could be ploughed by a single plough in the course of a year. There was really no fixed standard, but in England it varied from (10 to 100 acres; in Scotland it ran to 130 imperial acres, which represent fairly busy ploughing, considering that weather and season must be taken into consideration.

As showing the difference in values in mules and horses, the following extract from a Capetown market report is interesting:—Good colonial trappers, £46 to £65 per pair; horses, single trappers, £l6 up to £22 10s each; heavy draught horses, £l7 10s up to £25 per head; light draught horses, £5, £6, up to £l6 each. Mules, ordinary workers, 13.2 hands, £l3 to £l7 10s each; 14 hands upwards, £25 to £35 each.

The principle constituents of the soil are sand, clay, and humus. None of these are plant foods, however, though humus by decomposition may provide nutriment for plant life. The actual plant foods are present in very small quantities. If Nature had arranged otherwise, manuring would have been a hopeless undertaking. A hundredweight of, say, nitrate of soda per acre, makes a marked difference in most crops, though the actual quantity is infinitesimal in comparison with the quantity of soil.

Water is present in all foods. Hay may contain as much as 13 per cent., oats about 18 per cent., green fodders vary between 00 and 80 per cent., and roots and tubers as much as 90 per cent. If the water taken in these foods is not sufficient, then thirst is provoked and water is instinctively taken by the animal. The rule holds with the domestic animals as with man, that the water supplied for drinking purposes should be pure and fresh and above suspicion.

There are many good substitutes for milk in calf-rearing. New milk undoubtedly remains the best, as it is the natural food of the calf, but its cost renders it prohibitive except for the first few weeks of the calf's life, when it is imperative. Cod liver oil, which at one time was much talked about in connection with calf-rearing, is also too expensive for practical purposes. Linseed is used extensively, and in the Royal Agricultural Society's trials ground oats fed dry gave the best results of the foods used.

A new light was thrown on many problems by the discovery of the important part played by bacteria in the soil. The study of soil bacteria presents great possibilities to the scientist. It appears as if a revolution in agriculture could be effected by the control of soil organisms. There have been attempts to prepare cultures for innoculatiug seeds and soils, but so far they have not been a success in practice, while other methods of treating soils, though effective experimentally, are not yet practicable in farming.

The word "record" is much overworked in these days, when prices rule high. In the 13th and 14th centuries things were different, for meat was to be bought as low as a farthing per pound, and the price of wheat was about 2s per quarter. In these times, however, there is not much trade in agricultural produce. Each manor was made selfsupporting as far as possible, and with no Foods and Drugs Act the agricultural produce sold, which was generally the surplus after the requirements of the manor had been met, was not always distinguished by quality or wholesomeness.

Perhaps the two most important factors in plant growth are moisture and temperature. Plants vary greatly in their requirements in both. Even the differences in the ruling temperatures within the narrow limits of tlie British Isles render some important farm crops local. The mangold, for instance, is a speculative crop north of the Humber and Mersey. It is practically unknown in Scotland, and in the northern counties of England its success depends largely on the date of the first night frostt iii autumn, y

South Africa, with 1,900,000 dairy cows, has to import both butter and condensed milk,

The potato is an example of a crop that is best suited by some degree of rigour in the climate, or at least by the absence of scorching suns. Big crops can be grown in the soutli under suitable conditions, but the stock very quickly loses constitution, and a change of '■seed" is required. The reason for this has been vigorously debated by potatogrowers, though opinion is by no means unanimous. In the north the tubers do not mature to the same extent as in the south, and this is accepted by many as the explanation.

Owing to a shortage of farm labour for the hay season in England from July 1") to October l."i. the Army Council has given leave that a certain number of soldiers may be employed by farmers at Os per day of ten hours in the Eastern Counties, and 5s per day in Wales and remaining English Counties. If board and lodging are provided then Is (id i deducted. The military authorities have power to requisition at a fair market value any suitable hay that is not soft hay or clear clover; but allowanco is being made for shortage of the hay crop so that farmers may have enough feed for their stock.

Plants take their food like the. ma jority of patients take their medicines, in solution. It is this that renders the solution of manures so important, for insoluble substances arc useless as fertilisers. Plant life, like animal life, is dependent, though not to the same extent, on a supply of oxygen. This is absorbed through both leaves and roots, and ona of the benefits of a well-cul-tivated and well-drained soil is that it is well aerated, or in other words, that the supply of oxygen is ample. The more oxygen a consistent with other requirements the better, but a certain amount of consolidation and consequent lessening of the air spaces are necessary to provide a foothold and water supply.

There were (says the Live Stock Journal) 202,890 more sheep in England and Wales last June than there were in the corresponding month last year. This means an increase of 1.5 per cent., or in plain figures the difference between 17,522,580 in 1915 and 17,259,690 in 1914. Ewes kept for breeding have increased & matter of 33,410, or 6.5 per cent.; but whereas other sheep one year old and above have increased 330,000, or 10.5 per cent., sheep under a year old have fallen to the extent of 100,'C20, or 1.4 per cent. An indifferent lambing season is responsible for 'this reduction in the number of lambs.

A London paper states that the German butchers have frequently been blamed by would-be purchasers of meat for the very serious rise in prices. The German Butchers' Association has, therefore circulated an official statement in which the situation is explained. In the statement the Butchers' Association says:—"Since the outbreak of the war the price of cattle has risen by over 50 per cent., that of calves by over 35 per cent., that of sheep by over 30 per cent., and that of pigs by over 150 per cent., and there is every prospect of prices rising still higher. The consequence is that the poorer classes and the very large numbers of former customers whose income lias been diminished during the war can no longer purchase meat."

A development in the meat trade is apparently taking place with the European countries on a wider scale than formerly. As yet we are, no doubt, just on the brink of this trans-Atlantic trade, and prices can be expected to soar to record figures on this continent if the huge armies are to be fed, demanding an amount of food and other supplies from America, contracts having been made in both live cattle and fresh beef. The French ports have temporarily opened for the reception of American live cattle for immediate slaughter. Armour and Co., of Chicago, forwarded 1650 head recently, this being merely a beginning. The initial order called for cattle weighing 15001b, but later orders have been received for lighter weights. Italy has also entered the field by placing a* large order of fresh beef with the same firm, and will undoubtedly afford a considerable outlet.

Horse breeders anticipate that Europe wiil set up a demand for horses for a number of years following the war. The two countries which are in a position to meet the demand are Russia and the United States;, the latter country possessing it is estimated 24,000,000' horses. The Cape Times says: "South Africa should figure among the exporting countries, and it was remarked, when tlie mounted men passed through Cape Town for Bothaland, that the general stamp of horse was good. There were large numbers of mounts, about 14.2 hands, of good appearance, fine action and spirit. They acted up to their looks, standing exhausting marches with long intervals between water and food." When the Boer war was in progress many New Zealanders had experience of the South African ponies, and also large numbers of Argentine ponies, which were imported in large numbers for military purposes. Unless the South African pony has improved a great deal since those days I do not think it is a class of horse that would be of much service in Europe just now.

How necessary it is for the farmer to exercise care in the selection of the seed that he commits to the ground is being increasingly demonstrated, fn the course of a series of experiments on the influence of seed selection, it was found that the large seeds of oats produced about 8 bushels per acre more than the mediumsized, and the medium about 71 bushels more than the small-sized seed, or an advance of over 15 bushels per acre from the large as compared with the small seed. Averaging the results for each class of crop, it was found that the large seed surpassed the small seed by 10.1 per cent, for the grain crops, 40.3 per cent, for the rape, and 60.1 per cent, for the root crops. In another experiment a comparison was made between plump and shrunken seeds of barley, spring wheat, and winter wheat. In this case none but either plump or shrunken seeds were selected, and the selections were made regardless of the size of the kernels. The same number 0 f seeds of the different selections for each class of grain was taken, and the different lots were sown on plots of uniform size. The average of several years' results show that in weight of grain per measured bushel and yield of berth straw and grain per acre, the large plump seed surpassed the shrunken seed in every instance for each of the grains here mentioned. In averaging all the results it was found that the plump seed gave a yield of 20.2 per cent, more thin the shrunken Med.