FARM AND DAIRY.

Taranaki Daily News, 14 May 1921, Page 8

FARM AND DAIRY.

FERTILISER, DISCOVERY.

What may prove to be a revolutionary development in the fertiliser industry has been reached by the U.S.A. Bureau of Soils, which has succeeded in extracting phosphoric acid from phosphate rock by heating mixtures of this mineral, sand, and coke to a smelting temperature in a fuel-fed furnace. The established method of producing soluble phosphate in Australia is to treat the rock with sulphuric acid. An equal quanqtity of acid and rock is used, and the resulting product, known as superphosphate, contains only one-half the atid contained in the rock from which it is derived. Commdreial acid phosphate, for instance, made from a 32 per cent, rock, contains only 16 per cent, of phosphoric acid. The elaborate washing and screening process now used in preparing phosphate rock for treatment with sulphuric acid often results in the loss of twothirds of the rock, and it was with a view to saving this immense waste of phosphate that the new process was evolved.

The practical value of the new development (says Current Opinion is indicated by the fact that in the experimental runs at Arlington, Virginia, the departmental chemists were able to recover a 64 per cent, phosphoric acid as against the 16 per cent, product ordinarily obtained by the sulphuric acid process. By passing ammonia gas into this phosphoric acid, solid ammonium phosphate a very concentrated material containing two valuable fertiliser ingredients results. This material can .stand heavy transportation and handling charges. It is also practicable to mix the phosphoric acid with phosphate rock in such proportions as to give a product containing 50 per cent, of soluble phosphoric acid. This product is similar in its properties to ordinary 16 per cent, acid phosphate, is convenient to handle, ahd may be used by an intelligent farmer who has the technical knowledge to reduce the quantity placed upon the soil, and to guard against direct contact with seed. If also will permit a material saving in freight to central plants where the product may be diluted and mixed with other ingredients for shorter hauls. The difference between a 50 per cent, product and a 16 per cent, product means an immense saving in the freight charges. While the actual cost of the new process in a large industrial plant is difficult to estimate with accuracy, in the work thus far done, even on a small scale, it was found that the fuel consumption was only about 15 per cent, of the value of the product, while with the sulphuric acid process the cost of the acid used seldom runs below 22 per cent.

Canada is producing more than 90,000,0001 b of creai»ery butter and approximately 200,000,0001 b of cheese annually, according to a bulletin of the Dominion Bureau of Statistics. The butter produced in 1918 represented a total value of something more than 35.000,000 dollars, while the cheese brought more than 41.000,000 dollars.

Messrs. L. ('. Ballantine and Company cabled to R. Arlow and Co., under date London, April 30th, the official quotations ex store as follows:--"Prime ox 41d, new season’s lamb lid. ewes u/64, 7Ad, wethers u/64 B|d, with substantial reduction for heavier grades: market heavily stocked with New Zealand ewes, Patagonian sheep and lambs, ‘and River Plate sheep and beef.” The first manager of the Edendale dairy factory, and pioneer of dairying in Southland, was the late ..Vlr, George Inglis, who came from Australia. Other managers were Air. Jos. Woods (now a resident of the Bluff), the late Mr. Thos. Scoullar, Mr. James Sawers (who was one of the early dairy instructors and graders for Southland, now living in Invercargill), and (the present manager, Mr. .John Sawers, who was at one time Chief of the Dairy Department in New Zealand. The Poverty Bay Farmers’ Union passed a motion urging that the Imperial authorities be requested to purchase this year’s wool clip at 50 per cent, less than the commandeer prices; that they should post it with the balance of the commandeer wool in hand, and dispose of the total at the jnean average price for the two clips. It was urged that if this were done it would probably save a loss of 740,000 bales of .commandeer wool in hand, stabilise the market, and safeguard eight millions surplus profits. Although the weather continues cloudy and overcast the Waipawa district is still rainless (states the Napier Daily Telegraph). The prolonged dry spell is having a disastrous effect on gardens and pastures, and the position is causing considerable anxiety to tlie farmers, who are at their wits’ end to find feed for their atock. Last year a large number of trees were cut down for feed, but this year there are none to fall back on, as there has been no growth of any description for many months.

The spread of foxglove on the rich flats on the banks of the Waitotara river was mentioned by Mr. Gregor McGregor at the meeting of the executive of the Wellington Provincial Farmers’ Union. He mentioned that he had ploughed and sown in grass in 1916 a paddoek of about 40 aeres, it was now covered with foxglove, and it was also spreading on to a bush section which had been first grassed a few months ago. The plant was also spreading in ether parts of the district. Some of the farmers desired to have the sale of this seed by florists proliibted, and the Department of Agriculture is now investigating the matter. The Argentine, according to an American observer, appears to be a close runner-up to New Zealand in possession of those attractions that prompted Mr. Seddon to name the Dominion “God’s Own Country.” A writer in The Chicago Breeders’ Gazette, in describing a recent visit, throws some interesting light on the climatical and agricultural conditions of the country. “Cows suckling calves lose but little flesh in the Argentine,” he says. “I have never seen jio many fat cows. They keep in this condition without grain. One breeder told me that he had to sell his Berkshire sows because they got so fat on the grass that they would not breed. The seasons are warmer than in U.S. The winters, which are short, are like our November. Grass stays green all winter. There is never enough frost to cause tre<*s to shed their loaves, which are pushed off by the new buds. Alfalfa (lucerne) grows everywhere the same as blue grass in the States. I travelled over fields where it was as thick as the hair on a dog. There are thousands of acres of level land round Buenos Aires, where the water is but twenty feet down, making it the greatest natural B.tfalfa country in the world.”