FARM AND DAIRY.

Taranaki Daily News, 5 May 1922, Page 7

FARM AND DAIRY.

At one American experimental station the dairying utensils are rinsed and dried in the sun and air. thu« ensuring the destruction of all bacteria. From the same source, too, it is pointed out that initial rinsing after use is absolutely essential. Hot water and steam are advocated in conjunction, the one being useless without the other. Five hundred and ten acres of potatoes, owned by a Washington State rancher, says the Scientific American, were in danger of destruction by the potato bug. The little pests were working so fast that it did not seem as though any means of extermination could possibly keep up with thorn, let alone catch up with them. But the rancher was a resourceful soul, and he attached an insecticide-spraying outfit to the side-car chassis of his motorcycle, utilising the power of the machine for traction and for spraying. With this outfit he found it possible to spray 190 acres per day with Paris green, whereas a horse-drawn sprayer would by no expedient have been able to get above 35 acres. With the exceedingly hot, dry weather that was so general during the past summer, a day’s delay might well have spelled ruin for the crop, but the motor-cycle saved the situation.