AGRICULTURAL COLUMN.

Tuapeka Times, Volume III, Issue 112, 31 March 1870, Page 6

AGRICULTURAL COLUMN.

Russia is and must be a giant because she is mighty in wheat, leather^ and iron. One snort of a locomotive is worth, a thousand tons of guano me making land sell high. '> Indian corn and potatoes gain more from good cultivation than manuring. Grain crops gain nothing by beinjli cut before the ripening process is wel^V advanced. A judicious system of rotation of crops is the sign of an intelligent farmer. • Barley succeeds best after roots, and requires a rich mellow seed bed, and a dry or well-drained soil. Barn-yard manure has a much greater value when applied to the crops after being composted than when in a fresh state. The most important class in a community is feed-producers ; the next in power are those who deal in comforts ; the least valuable are those who live by the luxuries. An English farmer, by picking over his seed wheat with the utmost care, and planting a grain in a place, at intervals of a foot each way, produced 162 bushels to the acre. Clover and grass make better and grass make better and more nutritious hay if cut early, and well and quickly cured in the shade, rather than dried out in the sun. The " Auckland Weekly News" says :—": — " We hear that a gardener in the vicinity of Auckland is making experiments as to the possibility of advantageously drying peaches. We shall watch his trials with much interest, as, if he succeeds, a fresh and important article of export will be produced. Power in nations in the last analysis comes down to a question of wheat and coal. That Government can stand up to hard fighting longest which can produce the greatest crops of wheat while war is raging, and which can keep afloat the most steam war vessels. Though wheat-growing does not show the profit on paper with some fancy crops, no community live in better houses, drive better horses, or build better school-houses or churches than those where thirty bushels of wheat to the acre is a frequent yield. Market gardeners, who use the most effective manures* without regard to cost, are small purchasers of guano and the bi-chemical fertilisers. They depend on compost made of vegetable refuse, thus creating a condition of soil similar to that of fresh-cleared and heavy-timbered lands. In England they are now manufacturing large numbers of elephant ploughs, which are sent to Incliatfor there the animal is jnade serviceable in this way. Two men guide the plough, another man directs the animal, and the elephant marches along all day, turning up a ridge, and leaving' a furrow three feet deep and four and*^ a-half feet wide. — " Iron Age." Thrifty farmers are of two sorts i one works to make his farm twice as valuable — the other works to lay up twice as much money this year as he did last. Would you force garden plants and have the earliest green peas ? Sprinkle" every forty-eight hours with liquid manure, made by leaching yard manure, ashes, and bone-dust. If the stuff is strong, dilute largely. A careful saving of the seed of every crop grown on the farm, paying attention "to gather that which is clean, plump, and earliest ripe, each year, will result in improving the average yield of the crops grown, and reducing the length of time between seed time and harvest time. In heavy soils, stirring fourteen 1 inches deep, a steam plough of 14horse power goes over an acre an hour ; in light soils it stirs two acres an hour. All the grain-growing States, the cotton farms, the sugar estates, and ,more than half the corn lands of the tfniiea States are fitted for steam cultivation. A correspondent of the "Western Rural " describes his method of making pigs profitable as follows:— I saw iri your paper of a late date an enquiry as to the way by which to make pigs profitable. I would say, in the first place, keep no more than is sufficient to eat what feed you have. If one pig will eat it, give it to him ; it is better than to feed it to two. In the next place, have a good, warm, dry place for them to sleep in, with plenty of clean straw, changed twice a week. I raised* nine pigs from a Suffolk sow and a Chester boar last year ; fed on milk and corn mostly in the ear, and all the milk they would drink. They averaged 2751b5. dressed, when eight months old. Keeping hogs poor one year and fat the nest, has exploded with me years ago. I recollect having two pigs of a neighbouring farmer in 1845. I fed mine well during winter, on corn, and slops of the house. He fed his so as to just keep them alive. After four months I saw his pigs, and said to him — " Our pigs do not look as though they were of the same litter." He said they did not, but that he would make as much pork in the fall as mine. I told him I would remember it, for if I was a fool it was time I knew it. I slaughtered mine wheri they were foiirteen months old. One weighed 3671b5, and the other 2381b5. If I had not much milk, I should prefer corn, . maize, rye, and oats, ground in ' about equal parts, scalded and let stand until it ferments.