FARM & GARDEN NOTES.

Waikato Argus, Volume IV, Issue 285, 7 May 1898, Page 2 (Supplement)

FARM & GARDEN NOTES.

The Weather and the Farm.—The weather continues mild and open, and is exceedingly pleasant, but, although it seems ungrateful to complain of the beautiful weather we are now experiencing, the want of rain is badly felt, and a good, steady, warm rain would delight the hearts of all engaged in agricultural and pastoral pursuits. The weather could not be better suited for chaffing and threshing. Croppers (especially those wise ones who got their crops in early last season) have indeed been singularly fortunate all through this year, for, in addition to having phenomenally favourable weather for harvesting, milling, and carting their grain, they are securing excellent prices and a reidy sale for their products. ■I- X + Wheat.—A cable message, dated London, May Ist, intimates that hard Duluth wheat at that date was 49s per quarter; Russian cargoes, 435. There has since been a further rise of Is per quarter, thus bringing hard Duluth wheat up to 50s ((is 3d a bushel.) The market was reported as firm, but inactive. In Canterbury, the market is said to be quiet, the price at present offer'ng being from 4s 3d to 4s 5d (f.o.b. at Lyttelton.) The war news has, however, caused the farmers to be less anxious to sell, and they have, naturally, advanced their ideas of value. The price even now offering at Home certainly warrants their receiving a better figure than 4s sd, the margin between Mark Lane and New Zealand values being altogether too wide. The Melbourne and Sydney markets have advanced, and a ii m tone characterises both. The Melbourne quotation is 4s 8d ; the Sydney 4s 6d. + + -IPoTAToes. —Potatoes are going to be very scarce and dear until after the next year's crop is lifted. Locally they arebringing up to £5 per ton, and in Canterbury they are in good demand at 60s and ov«jr. It is very seldom potatoes bring such a price in that province at this season of the year—they oftener rule nearer £1 than £3, and growers generally experience difficulty in disposing of them. This year there is a short crop and there is, in addition, an active demand from Sydney. Heavy shipments are going forward to that port, which the Press fears may somewhat depress the market there. Present Sydney quotation for New Zealand potatoes is from £5 5s to £5 7s Gd. -I- x + Oats.—Oats continue strong in all markets. A rise is recorded in Dunedin, with an insullicient supply to meet tho demand. Feed sorts are quoted up to 2s 4d ; milling, 2s 6d ; tartars, 2s Bd. When the Southland crop comes to market it is expected there will be an easement in the price, but a substantial drop is not looked for. Oats being so dear, it naturally follows that chaff is also selling well. In Canterbury as much as £3 5s is being paid for it at country stations. x + x An Inch of Rain.—What is the size of your farm ? Shall we say 610 acres ? And you have had an inch of rainfall 1 Then your land has received 64,000 tons of water, equal to 100 tons per acre, + + + A Prolific Sow. —A wonderful Cheshire sow is referred to in the " Rural New Yorker." This prolific breeder farrowed 7S pigs in six litters, her farrowing being four litters of 14 pigs each, oi>e of 12 and one of 10. Out of the. total number 72 pigs were reared, and their value is set down at £72. + + + Complimentary.— Lord Chief Just'o Cockburn, who, after along stroll, sitting down on a hillside beside a shepherd, observed that the sheop selected the cookst situation for lying down. "Mac," saidhe, " I think if I xrre a sheep, I should certainly prefer the other side of that hill." The shepherd answered: "Ah, my lord, but if you had been a sheep yo would have had mair sense." + + + Rare v. Gseen Fallowing.—The old idta of lejting the soil by leaving it barren is gone. There is no reason why it should not be [reducing all the time if its wants are supplied. . Bare land i 3 land which is parting with its nitiates to was'e, whilst that with a crop of clover for ploughing in will be getting richer. Such a crop is said to 1 e equal in value to 10 tons per ace of farm-yard manure. + -I- + The Berkshire Pk; in Australia.— One of the leading breeders of Bcrkshires in. the Sydney district reports that the demand is so brisk that he is now booking orders to be executed from future litters. His present stock is sold out. The cause of the popularity of the Berkshire in Australia is not far to seek. They are healthy, prolific, mature early, make greater gain for a given cost of food, and dress with little waste.' x x x The Butter Seasons of 1894-95 and 1897-98 : A Contrast.—As showing the large falling off there has been in the export butter trade of Victoria during this season as compared with the previous years, owing to a continuance of the drought and the disastrous bush fires destroying a large area of pastures, the total quantity shipped this season was only 6000 tons. Last year (says the " Australasian ") the consignments reached 7895 tons, but in 1594-5 the export trade was 11,584 tons, or nearly double the quantity shipped this year. Victorian butter brings in the London market about £9O or £IOO a ton, sa that the colony has lost by this decline in the production upwards of £500,000. xxx WnAT Leguminous Food Supplies.— Wc have heard a good deal about leguminous plants, bke clover, peas, beans, &c, obtaining nitrogen from the air and giving it to the soil, but it is not only the soil which needs it, but the animals alio, All dairymen know of the presence of protein in milk, and the supply of it to the cow must be kept up, in other words, nitrogenous food must be given, and the legumes are the cheapest means of doing this. Mm receives his supply of protein in the form of wheaten bread mainly. Our farm stock may receive it in bran, polhrd and suchlike, but the clovers and kindred plants are said to be the cheapest protein producers avail\ble. Many a farmer buy-; bran when ho would find a better friend in clover. + -f + To Preserve Fencing Posts —A simple method of preserving wooden pus:s set in the earth for fences or other purposes is given by a writer in the '• Bautechnische Z.utschrift," —namely, that of turning them upside down, that is, reversing t'.iein from the position which they had while growing as portions of the trunk of a tree. The reason for this is that the capillaries of a tree aie so arranged as to promote th s ascent of fluid, from the root upward ; consequently, a log set in the ground in the same relation as the trunk of a growing tree will draw moisture fro.n the ground to a considerable height, and the wood so moistened will decay, while on the other hand, if the log is set with the other end up, the action of the capil laries tends to oppose the ascent of moisture. xxx Sheep Dip.—Mark Twain, during his Australian travels, had a look at a shearing i«hed and the call for " tar" by ttie shearers when they cut a sheep seemed to have deeply interested him. Someone told him thi stuff applied to the wounds was " sheep dip," and throughout his new book he drags in his sheep dip" knowlodgo upjn all occasions. " ttlncp dip," he explains iu oue place, " is stuff like tar, and is dabbed on tho places where the shearer clips a piece out of the

sheep. It birs out the flics, and has healing properties, and a nip to it which nukes the sheep skip like the cittle on a thou-uud hills. It is not. good to oat. That ia, it is not good t> eat except when niixcd.wuh railroad e >ffer>. It imnrovorailroad edl'o'. Without, it, riilr.iiid coli'ee is ten vague, b it with it it is quit-' assertive and enthusiastic. + + -!- The Braxdtno of Meat.—Writing on Australian meat the Kngli-h " Fic'l I " says : —" The request of t le A,i tra'ian Minis ers of Agriculture that frozen meat from tli-ir pirt of the Antipodes slim d under the prop sed Meat Markiiij B 11, 1)5 imukcd 'Australian,' and tut f reign, is rcasona'd s enough. N »r would it add apprec ably to the d fliculties of this: entru:s.e:l witli th? administration of the measure to have it complied with. Of course cauide - ab'e complication miu'ht arise if the imports from every coun'ry th mid have t) be similarly distinguished ; but the precedent in the case of Australia need rot be fol'owe 1 Leyo.id our own colo .i -s and dependencies. The c would not be the same claims for allowing iqual e~u cessions in the cues of countries not under British sway. But, inasmuch as meat from Australia, New Z-aland, and Canada could not correctly be designated ' foreign,' tho producers of theseoounlrio are justly entitled to have their exports distinguished by another brand, which, if it would incur too much trouble to identify them severally by the name of the producing country, might take the form of the exclusive word ' Colonial." xxx Prohibition of Fruit Importation INTO GERMANY. —Germany has issued a mandate totally prohibiiinsj tho entrance of apples or pcirs fro;n Amorioi on account of tho tSan Jose scile, and "this arouse* the farm rhymer of the " Rural New Yorker " thus vise : The German Kaiser sits up nights to guard his apple trees : In every shadow on the road a lurking thief he sees. We send our good dried fruit abroad—the Kaiser did but wink, And learned men forthwith declared that the} - were soaked in zinc; Our hogs have diphteritic throats —he knows it by their squeal: Our horses are alive with germs—there's death within our meal. Our hams and bacons are too strong, our cotton is too weak ; Our flour won't rise, our springs won't fall, our butter tubs won't leak. Once more the Kaiser calls to arms. Oh hear the bugles bray ! ThcFatherlaud's invaded by the bug from San Jose. Call out the guard along the Khiue—tie up the Baltic Sea, And let the Kaiser load his gun beneath his apple tree, And notify old Uncle Sam to wipe his apples clean ; They want no bug from San Jose iu Germany, I ween. -t- + -1Strenuos Lancutaoe in [the Cowshed.—The "Western Post" (N.S.W) complains of the language used by the milk hoys when driving their produce to the iVludgce factories. " They convert the yard into a perfect • hell upon earth,' says the paper severely. How it comes that all persons employed about cows and horses develop symptoms of pronounced profanity is one of the riddles of the age. The larger the animal the more repulsive the language. At last you get to camels and elephants. The speech said to be employed by the drivers of these powerful creatures surpasses in complexity of unattractiveness anything known to Kuropean ears. No wonder the poor quadrupeds obey with such alacrity. In India it is reported that some lady missionaries who'd mastered Hindustani persua led the native drivers to abs'ain if only for a day. That was at 5 a.m. Before night every driver was trampled flat by the enraged anima's, who naturally mi-itook sile - ce for contempt;. It may be that Mudgec milk demands spiriteJ metaphor to keep it sweet. If so, western cowboys are generously smothering their finer feelings in order to presjrve their customers. Iu all countries language, like manners, get worse as you go west. —Sydney Mail. t f t A Dainty Dairy School —lf dairying could be made as pleasant for the sons and daughters of Australian firmers as it is for students of the science in England, it might como to be regarded as a light and elegant arnmetnent. Here is, a descrip t - on of the system from a London dairy paper : —" In the tuition has been elev. tedto a fine art. There is a county council dniry at Chelmsford, where students aro taught to track the milk bacteria to their lair, to manufacture six kinJs of butter from oue vat of croam, to discover the red germs which make Stilton bad and the green germs which make Caraem bert good. The dairy is a part of the county biological laboratury. The students are selected from the district dairy schools, the most promising from each. They spend a fortuight in tho central dairy, combining microscopic il research with the mystery of tho nico turning of a churn. They are all practical persons, usually the sons and daughters cf the leading farmers of the county. The ladies wear white aprons, and the men clothe themselves in smocks. Some of them probably can quote Horace, but while in the dairy they confine themselves to t*"eir milk pails and test tubes. They make such butter a 9 would tempt one to for3wear margarine for evermore " We should say that this is an ideal that is very far removed from the kind of dairying work our maid« an I 1 ids are engaged in iu these colonies. When you rise at 5 o'clock in the morning und milk a lot of cows in time to send the milk off to the factory at 7, Horace is apt to be forgo'.ten, even in your "hours of eiso,'' which are snatched between 8 o'clock p.m., when everything is finished up, and o o'clock next morning. t t f Greasy v. Scoured Wool : It Pays to Wash.—The Loudon correspondent of a contemporary writes :—As an experiment, it was lately determine I to wash a parcel of Sydney, Port Phillip, and New Zealand wool, carefully noting the weight of the wool before and after washing, and obtaining a close valuation in each case of the greasy and washed wool, which was kindly undertaken by one of the most eminent firms of London woolbrokers without their previously knowing the actual loss in weight. This valuation was then in each case worked out in conjunction with the lots in weight, with the following result. The figures have been reduced to percentages for the convenience of ca'culatiou : Sydney wool, 1001 b., valued iu the grease at Hod per lb., gave4Bilb. of clean wool, valued at 26d per lb. ; or, after deducting a loss in weight of 01.V1b., showed an increase in actual value of about 10 per cent. Port Phillip wool, 1001 b., valued iu the grease at Hid per lb., gave 49Alb. of clean wool, valued at 27d per lb., or, after deducting a loss in weight of 50Jib., showed an increase in value of about 16 per cent. New Zealand wool, 1001 b., valued in the grease at 12Jd per lb., gave 561 b. of clean wool, valued at 25.1 per lb. ; or, after deducting 441 b. loss iu weight, showed an increase in value of about 12 per cent. The quantity of neutral potash soap used ill each of the above cases was about 51b. per 1001 b. of greasy wool washed, which, if taken at a cost of about '2d per lb., would amount to 10(1, or, say, I per cent, on the value of the wool. Taking the labour in washing and drying at about the same, the clear gain shown by washing in the best manner amounted on an average to 10 per cent, on the value of the wool. To a certain extent the fine handle and loftiness of the wool told in its favour, but it was evident that the chief gain hail been accomplished in the abnormally small loss in weight, as every manufacturer, on being shown the corresponding samples of washed and unwashed wool, estimated the loss in weight greater than it actually proved to be. The licit

of the scouring bath should be from 100' to 120'Fah., according to the quantity of grease in the wool.

Monby i<r Ckk.vm. -There should [be inouoy in providing sweet ere an for the multitudes in city or town, who positively hunger for this Selectable product, Once upon a timj—and. not many years ago—good butter was a luxury to the city people. The factory system has brought first-class butter within the roach of everybody who can afford a lecont meal, but strange to say the unmanuf .etureel article is as scarce as ever. When I go into the omntry atrl sit at the tible of a hospitable fanner, I always look for the cream, and if it is there I am sitisfied. Seven cour-es, two blackcoited waiters, four wines, and champagne o i ice co ildn't tear me away from ihat board, however humble it might bo. That cream lnlds mo in silent soulful eontempliti m ; a beatific gratitude and u lively sense of favours t) come keep me at the tible until I am too abashed at my gas'rio perform tnces to ask for any more. And I venturo to say that 99 out of every 100 peoplo Jiving in cities and towns wou'd sooner have cream than almost anything else that we pour mortals can command in this world. Yet we cannot get it, it is nearly priceles-" and scarce at th it. Buying cream is a*serious mutter, because although we would all like to invest alirge proportion of our incomes in the luxury there are necessaries to be remembered, and so we can only oxpend upon it a deep yet passing sight. As a rule, those who soil cream ask about a? much for a pint as for a pound and a half of butter. Evidently, if wo allow for the trouble in looking after the cream, good piofits could be realised by bri-ving a constant supply within the retch of the ordinary housekeeper, and boarding-house and hotel proprietors. There is no reason why the butter-man should not cart round properly bottled cream to his company's customers, nor is there any discoverable objection to any dairyman establishing u cream round as well as a milk round. At least Devonshire cream could ba supplied, but with the existing refrigerating methods and cool storage in use unripened cream -.ould be placed at the disposal of thousands of grateful people, and tho business «hould be a flourishing one.— Sylvan in the Sydney Mail. THICK AND THIN" SEEDING. During a discussion on the subject carried on'in the columns of tho Cultivator and Country Gentleman, a correspondent contributed the following experience : " 1 was interested in your first article on " Thick and Thin Seeding." It may be that some of my experience may be of value to others. The former Professor of Agriculture in our Agricutural College in our Farmers' Institutes stronjly recommended thin seeding; asserting that ono half-bushel of wheat per acre was enough if sjwii at the proper season, aud for lato sowing forty pounds might be better. He said that wheat was its own greatest enemy, that it is natural for it to tiller or stool, and if sown too thickly, there i« no room, the stoolings will die, aud a small crop will result. It has been the custom of our farmers to sow from ono bushel to ono aud a-half, usually not more than a bushel. It was hard to make farmers believe ho was correct, and very hard even to got them to try the experiment. I was led to believe his statement true, perhaps from the fact that when we first began to raise lucerne, we sowed about the usual quantity of grain with it, so as to give tho lucerne a better chance, and I think I never saw a time when we did not gtt a larger yield than when we sowed the usual quantity alone. I remember one of my neighbours sowed two bushels of barley to the acre, and on a field immediately adjoining he sowed ono bushel with lucerne, and when he sowed the lucerne he harvested twics as much barley as where he sowed two bushel-". It struck me that tho bed; way to settle the question of how much seed t) sow was to try both methods. " I have four men farming my land on share- 1 , I furnishing seed and water. As the yield after a few years fell from 25 to lo bushels per acre, they asserted that it was because enough seed was not sown ; so I told them to sow ns much as they pleased. The man who had the newest aid best land sowed one and a-half bushels, two others a bushel and a peck, and the fourth intended to sow a bushel, but for some cause be found when he was through that he had sown only three pecks. When the grain was six inches high, the man who sowed a bushol and a-half had the finest fieldas fine as any I ever siw, but at harvest lime his was the shortest and thinnest, and yielded the least, whi'e the man who sowed three peeks on the olJest land had the best yield of auy. When one man was sowing five pecks, I got him to sow a few rounds with one-half shut off, and at harvest time (this was an old land) it was plain to see that there the trrain was taller, the heads larger, and it ripened more naturally. It was harvested with an automatic binder, aud I found that in counting the bundles, one hundred and sixty rods back, there was exactly the same number of bundles in tho ono cisc as the other, but the bundles on the thin sowing were the heavier. At another time, when one of the men «\as sowing a bushel, I h id him sow twenty acres in the middle of the field, riming oue hundred and sixty rods ia lengh, with exactly one half-bushel to the acre. This was treated "every wiy exactly like the remainder of the field, and was harvested aud threshed by itsdf, and it yielded two bushels to the acre more than the rest of the field." THE ROTARY DISC PLOUGH. The introduction of the rotary disc plough marks another important step in the evolution of the principal implement used in the cultivation of the soil. It is really an extension of the principle of the disc harrow, and the implement is designed to not only turn over the soil but to pulverise it, thus doing the work of both the plough aud tho disc harrow in one operation. The new implement has been recently introduced into Australia from America, and is kuown as the Spaldiug-Ilobbius steel frame rotary disc plough. The colonial rights of manufacture have been purchased (says the Press) by a Melbourne firm, and sole agents for its sale in New Zealand have been appointed in Chris tchurch. The frame of the rotary disc plough is triangular, and the beams are made of steel, and in section arc II shaped, thus combining lightness with great strength. The principle on which the plough is constructed renders it necessary for extra heavy and strong wheals to be used, as well as additional weights for them when ploughing in hard laud. The cutting into and turning over of the soil is accomplished by steel discs, 23 inches in diameter, and these discs are mounted on extremely strong arms attached to the frame of the plough The ploughs are made in 2,1, 5, (i, and 10 disc sizes, and will cut from 3 to 10 inches in depth, and the power required to draw tho plough is one horse to each disc. The implement is exceedingly simple of construction, and the wearing parts tiro so limited that the cost of wear aud tear should be a comparatively significant item. The manufacturers claim for the plough a pre-eminence over other implements in the matter of ploughing and pulverising any kind of land. It is, however, when the ground is hard aud dry, such as it is in Canterbury this season, when an ordinary plough can scarcely be got into the ground, that the rotary disc is seen at its best. A gentleman who recently visited Victoria for the purpose of seeing the new plough at work, had an excellent opportunity of forming an idea of its capabilities, lie saw it tried on various kinds of land, and in some cases where it was so hard in consequence of the drought that it was found impossible to work the ordinary plough. In every case the rotary disc fulfilled all that was claimed for it, turning over the soil and pulverising it most satisfactorily. The first trial of the disc plough took place at liicearton, when there was a very good attendance of fanners, agricultural implement makers and others, who manifested considerable interest in the plough and tho work done by it. The plough was

first subjected to a severe test, 100 severe, in fact, to show how it would accomplish fair average woik, but flic agents' desire was to let fanners see what the implement could do under unfavourable conditions. The ground chosen was the headland of ;i paddock adjoining flic Riccarton Bush, and had been under grass for about nineteen years. The soil was fairly heavy clay, but with stifliciout moisture it would no doubt be friable, as if was old bush land, but owing to the severe drought and the fact that the strip operated upon had been used a good deal as a roadway, it was exceptionally hard and caked. The plough used was a five-disc one in size. and was worked by a team of six fine draught mares. The discs were set to cut furrows about six inches in width, and they were worked up to eight inches in depth, and sonic skimming was afterwards done three or four inches iu depth. The plough did its work very satisfactorily under the unfavourable conditions, but the ground Was too hard and dry to show what the implement was really capable of as a pulveriser or to give a fair idea of how it would bury the grass when ploughing lea land. It did tho skimming work very well indeed, so far as the condition of the soil would allow. The. plough was afterwards taken into another paddock and tried on a piece of cultivated land adjoining some root crops The ground was very dry and baked, and fairly hard underneath, but the plough in this showed what it could do as a pulveriser, turning up and working the soil and leaving it as fine and smooth as an onion bed. The practical men present were loud in their praises of the good work done by the plough in this part of the trial, and it gave one a fair idea of what it would accomplish under ordinary conditions. The team of six horses naturally found the work heavy in the hard ground when the plough was cutting to Sin. deep, but four horses walked away easily with it iu the cultivated ground.