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FARM AND DAIRY.

KLYV.S AXIJ NoTKtf. I lligh-dass rye grn ... and clover Iny Iris hern selling in the London niarkei at J over .'2B per ton. Do you not judge a farm or its «c- I cupier by the aypearanee of the home— \ as vou jiiii-s it UvV Jt is a good wav to judge. During the years lull) and 1!)14 tin. number of cattle in Canada decreased by LI per cent., and the number of sheep by 2D per cent. YVk- find in Kuropean papers serious .idvice about how to feed potato vines to slock. All sorts of forage will be needed on th" other side. What is one to believe about the crops in Germany. The officials announce tliey are splendid; rural newspapers report the reverse.

Ji is better to keep a few good cows nnd under good dairy conditions than a large herd of low-producing cows, poorly fed anil eared for. The dairy farmer is fast realising ','■ there is little or no profit in keeping a medioere cow, and he is getting rid of her. The price,; of 'beef have given him n good opportunity, which he has accepted.

('lover ran only flourish when the soil conditions are suitable. The soil must be fairlv deep, open, free working, and, above all things well drained. It is no me trying to grow clover if the soil is sour.

At the enr! of lfllfi (■•■ ere wore is .South Africa 240.072 flocks nf sheep and posts. Tl»' Mi'niln'i's were 2li.4!IO,:";U wnolled ond r>,.inO,l!H crossbred .iiul other slioep. 2/''!4.2SO Angora goats and G. 307,407 otlior goats. It has become general in Groat Britain to graze more old turf than was formerly done, and to now the newer pastures, which are assisted by basic slag. supcrnliosphatc, and the like, and consequently grow crops of great weight and highfeeding quality. The value of exports for the first four months of the yenr from Argentina, notwithstanding the shipping abort nee. amounted to C40,0(i2G0:?. or £7.954,200 mere than the like period in 101 (i. Live stock products moat, skins, and wool were entirely responsible, for tlie increase. A sow under careful management is in her prime at from three to five years of age. Later she may be equally prolific, but vonng pigs from old sows that may have become somewhat, cramned are never so strona and healtliv for breeding purposes as those selected from a younger mother. Record prices have been secured for over 2011,0001b of wool, sold co-opc-rative-ly by Ontario farmers under the auspices of the Ontario Shcopbroeders' Association. The prices averaged well over 3s per lb. This is believed to be the highoat. in the history of Canada. Ove» 180 ft farmers participated. The wool was sold by tender. Some years ago much lupin seed was -■own in the Kakaia river-bed, 'anterbirry. for the purpose of keeping the liver to a more or less restricted course. The lupins have to a large extent necoinplished I hi.-. and have also been instnimentftl in abating the dust nuisance in Hakaia township. They also helped towards the deepening of the river channel. Prepotency is probably stronger in the male than in the female, and therefore a bad sire can do infinitely more harm than a bail female, and vice versa. And whereas a bad cow will only produce one calf in a year, a bad sire mar be responsible for forty or more. Therefore lies the truth in the saying that the "bull is half the herd." Piieeding animals have to be trained out of luxurious habits before the best can be made out of them, but the change must be gradual. Cattle-breeders hold strordy to the view that the bent reproductive results are obtained when the male and female animals are in an im[froving state. Cows that are well fed will keo]> up their milk yield in a dry season, when in the absence of grass the yield from a poorly feil herd would fall oil' appreciably in quantity Tt is a very important point t.hat whatever food the cows are supplied with it should lie presented to them in such a condition Dial its nutritive qualities may be made to do most sorviee.

The numbers of farm live stock in Canada on .Tunc 30 wore as follows: — Horses, 3.035.-254; milch cows 2,042.700; other eattle 3.315.013; sheep 2,000,717; :;n<! swine 2, 513,520. This is an increase over last year for all descriptions, cxeepting swine. which are less by over 300,000. The (Incline in number of sheep, which has been continuous annu- | ally since IfllS, appears to be arrested, ilie increase shown this year being over 44.C00. Feed stored in the silo requires less space than when stored dry. A cubic foot of hay in the mow weighs about 151b, whereas the same volume of silage in a 30ft silo weighs about 351b. T'art t f this extra weight is winter, but even at that a cubic foot of silage contains considerably more than twice as much digestible food nutrients as a cubic foot of hay. The report that the f.'overnment is fixing the price of whey cream butter at threepence per lb, below the price of full cream butter has caused a great deal ot discontent amongst cheese factory suppliers, and they maintain that this action is almost equal to the imposition of another butter-fat tax. For home consumption whey butter is easily worth more than 3d less than the full cream article. Breeding cows in U.S.A. are at a premium. and the demand for young stock unprecedented. Buyers state that they are compelled to take anything that, loo'.is like a pig. The high prices paid for pigs and the increasing export trade are the two main factors which make the business attractive at the moment. Breeding to type means the eoncentra-

tion of good points to the exclusion of bad ones, and making those points permanent and fixed by careful and exclusive breeding up to the given ideal, If weakly or delicate animals are bred from, disease and imperfections are certain to work their way in them, whereas strong, vigorous animals, carefully bred, impress their own vigor on the offspring. If young pigs are to progress rapidly, it is essential that they be kept clean and dry, with a good bed under them. Upon no account should they be overcrowded. Their sty should be as roomy as possible, and if a good outlet or yard is connected therewith, so much the better. Pigs get far too little living room and exercise, as a rule. Farmyard manure, if it is well made and carefully preserved, contains a fair supply of nitrogen and potash, but it does not contain a sufficient proportion of phosphoric acid and lime. Therefore the use of farmyard manure and basic slag in com'.)iii" l 'on should produce profitable results. A peculiar parasite has been found on a cow at Horehoro, "Northern Wairoa. Only one has been located. It resembles, iu general appearance, a larje wattle

seed more than anything eke, and is a sliiny black in color. It* head and legs are scarcely perceptible to the naked eye, while the legs •"eem to he all round the body, or nearly so. When removed from llii' cow a. small scab and several pieces of hair (drawing blood) came away with [ il. Speaking in the House of Lords, Lord Ilarroiirl recently said that, while he was acting a.< president of the Hoard of Trade in It'll' he aii|iiir.-d information in regard to the nie.it supply. "After the war there would be a world scarcity of meal; I -almost a world famine, Germany, I>l- ' jr'niiu and Holland were faced with a post-w.tr d.dieit of 8.0(10.000 head of cattle, and Denmark, Austria, Serbia and Roimienia another 5.000.000. Europe, therefore. woitV seek to import from lli.lHiO.OljO to -U) IIP;.i,(l(,l) head of cattle. The total acreage under co'lery'Tn -«iglnnd and Wales in IBM amounted to 3."i15 acre*. I'lider present conditions, the authorities think that the growth of celery should be restricted where the crop ucciipcs land that intent lie used for potato-growing. It may be ]ioiHtcd out that a crop of celery of six tons per acre would produce less than one-quarter of the amount of food contained in a crop of 9even tons of potatoes. Von Liebig, who was a good old German, before the Hermans were inoculated with lite virus of 'world power" considered farmyard manure as the most valuable, b ; itt stated that the fertility of a soil could not b? maintained permanently by n rotating manure, which fails to bring back to the soil any portion of the mineral matter taken away by the crops. The necessity for the use of artiticial assistance to return to the soil the plant food removed by cropping was early apparent to the husbandman. GRASS AXI) CROPS. An English economist, writing on agricultural methods, says: The average 100acre Herman farm has only ?A acres devoted to gra'ss. and no less than -10 acres lo cereals. 10A acres to potatoes, n acres to roots, sugar heels, and legume*, and 2i acres to orchards. In oilier words, in Germany over two-thirds of every farm is kept under the plough, whilst in Groat Tiritain less than one-third of the cultivated land is ploughed. Herein is the main reason for '. ■ improved carrying capacity of Herman farms, for it is an axiom that tilled land will generally produce from two to five times as much food as land allowed to lie in grass. If agriculture, therefore, is to make headway in Britain, the first plank must be a policy of "Speed the Plough" and immediately increase the proportion of land sown to crops. Instead of less than onehalf or two-thirds could and should lie made to grow crops. But to double the urea of land ploughed each year would require an enormous increase in the working capital and the farm labor of the country. This capital is required (a) to purchase equipment—ploughs, cultivators, seeding and harvesting machinery: (b) to finance the extra labor neces--ary for the work. But where arc these two fundamental requisites for the extension of arable farming to come from? Capital is scarce, Tabor even scarcer, and the earnings both of labor and capital have been higher in industrial concerns than in agriculture. In spite of the high prices for all agricultural products in Great Britain during the war. agricultural production has not increased. A material extension-in the arable area of .'".rent Britain would be possible, therefore only by diverting capita! from other industries. Very few farmers have the capital necessary for a material enlargement of their arable ara. Even if a farmer could secure the financial accommodation necessary, and could overcome the difficulty of securing efficient labor, he has still to consider the possibility of a bad season; or low prices, or both; To be successful in arable farming, espcciallv on high-priced land, plans must be made years ahead. Fat and lean years must be expected and careful crop rotations practised. If a definite State policy is framed, and the State is willing to stand behind the farmer in lean years and in time of low prices, capital wilj be attracted to agriculture, and an agricultural revival will set in. Such a permanent guarantee would he secured by (1) the fixation of prices for a period of years, or (2) bv a protective tariff on foodstuffs. Either of these methods, if made permanent, would rapidly lead to A' extension of arable farming, and attract the necessary capital for financing such extension. The discussion of these ■nethods cannot be given here. That is a political problem, and lies entirely outside the scope of this article.

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/TDN19171228.2.12

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Taranaki Daily News, 28 December 1917, Page 3

Word count
Tapeke kupu
1,947

FARM AND DAIRY. Taranaki Daily News, 28 December 1917, Page 3

FARM AND DAIRY. Taranaki Daily News, 28 December 1917, Page 3

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