FARMING NOTES.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1705, 1 March 1888, Page 4

FARMING NOTES.

[COLIATJCD.]

Don't allow the flies to torment your teams if you can help it. Do not let weeds go to seed either in fields or road sides.

Soft soap is recommended for cholera in chickens.

If you whip the horse for shying you are making the habit worse. Some persons prize charcoal highly as a preventitive and cure of costiveness in swine.

Q-alls and sores are much, worse during severe warm weather than at at any other time.

Prune out all useless wood from young trees, and bring their heads into proper shape. It is a question with some good wheat-growers whether the manure should be applied before the first ploughing or afterwards, but the prevailing tendency is towards ploughing first, then to draw and spread the manure over the surface, and afterwards work it into the soil in subsequent cultivation. The manure is thus kept nearer the surface where it is believed to do the most good. A writer in the National Farmer says:— " A half-pint of sunflower seed given to a horse with his other feed each morning and night, will keep him in better health and better spirited than he will be without it, while his hair will be brighter. When a saddle horse is required to be particularly sprightly, he may be given a pint of sunflower seed with his oats at night and half as much in the morning; he will be found more active and sprightly throughout the day, and consequently be more pleasant to the rider. I have seen this course pursued with horses to make them antic, that were to go on parade, on occasions of town and country trainings, in early times; after a little use horses become very fond of eating sunflower seed."

The Guernsey Breeder says sof* wooded charcoal, especially willow* ought to be kept in the cow stable. If a cow does not look bright, give a teacupful in her bran or other feed, and wet up. If her breath is bad, her horns hot, and her nose dry, she is dyspeptic and feverish. G-ive her charcoal. If she has hollow horns, sure and no mistake, give her charcoal, half a teaspoonful at each meal, for three or four days. Treat wolf in the tail the same way. The wolf cannot stand charcoal. It is an excellent thing to give charcoal all round once a week. It is the- best regulator of stomach and bowels known.

A correspondent writes to a contemporary : "We are continually seeing advertisments in your columns by persons detaining strayed cattle, and advertising them for sale within 7 or 14 days for damages. Now, sir, these parties may not be aware of it, but it strikes me they could be charged with cattle stealing, for what right has anyone to detain cattle and shut them up in. their stable or paddocks, when at the same time the owner may be riding over the country after them. The proper place for strayed cattle is the public pound, the first place everyone makes for that loses cattle.

Some remarkable incidents of agricultural depression have been narrated in the Morning Post. In one paragraph it was stated that a Morayshire farmer disposed of a goose for 7s 6d and bought two calves for 6s, returning home with a balance of Is 6d. This story was capped by Dr Wingate Saul, who wrote that at a weekly stock sale in Lancaster a good healthy calf was recently sold for the 10th part of the value of the goose—namely, 9d. And why ? Because, said the writer, such is the present deplorable condition of agriculture, at least as far as stockraising goes, that if you let a farm rent free and supplied the occupier with calves at nine farthings apiece, he could not rear them without losing money. Is it really so bad as all that, even in the grazing districts ? If it be, there will be nothing for it but ruin or some heroic measure which nobody at present has the pluck to mention.

FONDNESS OF ANIMALS FOB SILT.

There is scarcely anything more remarkable than the fondness of hor»ivurous animals for salt. Doer, buffalo, and other creatures will (ravel scores, if not hundreds of miles, to the " salt licks,'' as the driedup alkaline tarns and marshes are called. 1 Professor Thomas and others have demonstrated that salt is the beat possible antidote to sheep rot; and the more salt sheep are allowed to partake of the lees likely they are to be affected by this terrible disease. I have long been of opinion (wrote Dr J. E. Taylor) that one cause of the readiuesi with which our domesticated animals " catch " a disease is our negleci to give the creatures enough salt. The French Government, like that of the United States, has always taken a special interest in promoting experiments for the benefit of agriculture and stockbreeding generally. Some time ago the former Government appointed a Commission to enquire how far «alt was beneficial to domesticated animals, The Commission has just presented its report. It said that salt ought to be given to all domestic animals to replace the saline matter washed out of their food by boiling or steaming. It demonstrates that salt counteracts the effects of wet pastures apd ijret food generally on sheep, and prevents rotj Moreover, it shows that it promotes the flow of saliva, and therefore hastens the fattening of stock ; and it rocommends that in all mixtures of potatoes, beet, chaff, bran, oil-cake, etc., salt should be added, The Commission has laid down, a rule for the quantity of salt to be administered. Thus,' the daily allowance for s iniiph cow ie'2oz, for a fattening stalUfed bullock from 2soz to 4|oz, for a fattening pig loz to Boz, for lean sheep foz, and for a horse, donkey, or mule, loz.