FARM NOTES.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXVIX, Issue 8138, 12 May 1906, Page 7

FARM NOTES.

HOW TO UURE A HALTEK BKEAKER. A bad and' vexatious habit in 'many horses is that of halter breaking. When fastened to the manger they succeed in breaking away. To *cnre this habit a plan which has been adopted—it is said successfully—abroad is explained by the following letterprsa. A few weeks' trial is said to effeot a cure. Take a strong rope long enough for the purpose, and, after doubling it, pass an end each side of the horse about midway between the front and hin d legs. Pass the ends through a ring, then through the hole in the manger, and then tie the ends to the hatler ring. When the horse pulls back the rope tightens around the body and pulls him back, so that after a few trials be gives up the plan. To prevent the rope from making the back of the horse soremake a soft pad of several thicknesses of new unbleached muslin covered on the outside with a piece of denim or any equally strong, clean material. Make some straps of some ot the material and sew to the pad, the rope passiug underneath the loop. SALT AND ASHES FOR - PIGS. A practice largely adopted by pig breeders in America, -and one whioh ought to be, generally followed in New Zealand, is to provide means by whioh the animal can have ready access to salt and ashes. The mixture is kept in the self-feeder, and is always available so that the pigs can help themselves whenever inclined, and when they get it that way they never take too much. If charcoal be given, tihey would, probably, not require salt, but this is not always easily obtainable, and salt and ashes are. At the Wisconsin experiment station pigs fed on maize-meal with salt and water got very fat in a short time, but soon failed to improve. Pigs fed on maize-meal, hardwood ashes, salt and water, did better and made a more satisfactory growth of bone; v while pigs having ashes made better gain still in every way. A ration which is particularly reoommended is maize wheat middlings, or wheat and grass, or clover, perferably the latter. Where maize is the bulk of the ration, the praotice of feeding salt and ashes is almost general. In regions where dairying is not the staple industry, feeders try to obtain, as an addition, to maize, all the wheat middlings, ground oats and flax seed possible, along with what milk can be spared after family requirements are provided for. bo breeder of repute attempts to grow breeding stock without a run of bluo-grads or clover pasture. Yet even with the grazing and variety of grain with maize as the chief ingredient it has been found that pigs having unrestricted acoess to salt and ashes with oharcoal therein, made better growth of frame and was lesß troubled with worms. For this reason the practice of keeping ealt agues and charcoal for pigs is especially commended.

THE FEEDING OF COWS. As many results of experiments in the feeding of cows published In reoentl years have indioated that the parentage of fat in their milk baa not been increased by more liberal feeding it is interesting to notice converse results in the prolonged trial carried out by the agricultural authorities of Cornell University. A poorly fed herd of, oowe, 21 incumber, was seleoted for the trial, and all were fed as usual by the owner for the first year. Then ten were taken for liberal feeding. In the first laotation period the cows bad only abont 41b eaoh daily of gluten teed and wheat bran or middlings find hay or pasture. In the second year they bad about 121b of conoeutrated food each daily, usually oonsiatirig of cotton seed or linseed meal, bran, gluten feed and buckwheat middlings In the third season they were still fed liberally, but with regard to a profitable allowance, getting 81b of concentrated food daily. In the fourth period they were fed poorly, as in the first, but the pasture feed was much better, as rain was more frequent. Tne result shows that nine out of the ten cows gave great increases in milk and total butter fat in the seoond season, when they had the most liberal ration and all but one showed also an increased percentage of fat. Only seven oows were kept for the third period of lactation and six of these fell off in percentage of fac in their milk, the feeding being liberal but not as extravagant as in the seoond period. The increased percentage of fat iu the seoond season ranged fiom .05 to .62. All the seven cows kept up to the last gave greatly reduoed quantities of milk and total fat in the fourth season, when returned to low feeding and six of the seven showed considerable reductions in percentage of fat. The summarised conclusions of these experiments ia as follows:—"In a herd of poorly-fed cows an abundant ration easily digested and , rather nitrogenous iu character and continued turough two years resulted in an average increase of onefourth of 1 per cent, of fat in the milk' on a percentage increase of about 6 per cent. This was accompanied by an increase of about 50 r.er cent, in total amount of milk and fat produced. The increased production was * secured economically."

GUTTING SEED POTATOES. A DBQENERAriNG PRACTICE. In all -trials that have been recorded of the potato crops produced from out and unout seed (says a writer in an English journal) I have never met with an instance of the out tubere yielding the irost or beat This Is a fact that must be very generally known, and it is somewhat surprising, I think, that it ia noti more acted on. It is extraordinary the disposition there is to out ao potatoes for planting. The process may increase the sets by about 30 per cent, bnt if the time taken in cutting them and the de-

oreased yield ar taken into consideration no advantage whatever is secured, bat the reverse, and personally I would consider myself far beter off in planting a piece of land with 25cwt or even 30owt of whole tubers than one ton out up to cover the same space. Ibe lieve cutting is generlly done with the sole object of saving seed. There is no reasou 1 can imagiuo, and, as results show, it is terribly poor one. In dealing with the cutting of potatoes the large tubers are mostly cut into three pieces, and medium ones into wo, and the Bmall ones are let go whole. The largest of the cut pieces may be as big as au ordinry sized tuber, and seem to pass muster as a full sized se<, but plant this and a whole tuber of equal weight side by side, make a trial, and it will almost be invariably found that the whole tuber produces the greater number of potatoes and ceitainy the largest ones. The weight I have sometimes found as much as 21b in favour of the whole set in ono plant, and imagine what this implies in the case of thousands or tens of thousands of plants. The scarcer and more expensive a variety is, the more it is out, and,as a natural consequence, the worse the crop, and surely this is a degenerating process. T lament to say it has proved so'in too many cases.