FARM & GARDEN NOTES

Waikato Argus, Volume V, Issue 333, 27 August 1898, Page 6 (Supplement)

FARM & GARDEN NOTES

THOUGH fine, the weather has been cold during the week, with a keen southeasterly wind,light frosts, a'so, occurring one or two night and which—though not sufficient to do much damage; hive stopped the growth of grass considerably. A mild rain set in on Wednesday evening, and should warmer weather ensue, feed will soon bo fairly plentiful.

Good progns-i continues to be made with farm work, the season being particularly favourable for working the land, consequently grain is b dug put in much earlier than usual, even in heavier and later lands, the only hindrance being in those casts where the turnips have not yet. been fed off. Now that, the bulk of the grain is s >wn and coming up,, the ravages of small birds are most keenly felt. What uncovered grain they pick up is no great loss, but the damage done to the young plants which are pulled up by their tender shoots is often very serious, the drill rows frequently lieing white with the young plants, necessitating, in bail cases, re-sowing the land. A good (leal, if not the whole of this, can be avoided by sowing a few pounds daily of phosphorised gram, which can be prepared by placing a stick of phosphorus in a bucket of grain, and adding sufficient boiiiug water to dissolve the phosphorus. If this is stirred well and covered up for a day or two, then thinly sown over the land, it will clear the birds off in a remarkable manner, and prevent much injury to the crop. It is a feood plan, where convenient, to drive a flock of sheep over the field after drilling, their fed c msolidating the soi 1 |about the seed, better than any rolling, and in dry weathor no harm can be done by the sheep camping on the land for a day or two. when the turnip shells arc lying about, wheat especially, liking a 6olid bed.

The progress of the marketstcontinue to bo satisfactory, almost every line of farm produce being in good domaud at full prices, -indeed for those who are sowing and planting ; perhaps, rather too full, —both seed grnin and potatoes being dear, though some good local lines of the former have been recently advertised in our columns at reasonable rates. The scarcity of seed potatoes will probably restrict tho area planted during tho coming season, and this, again, will tend to equalise prices. Early sorts are being planted just now ; and once into September tho main crop may be planted in warm and sheltered localities.

The excellent prices ruling for fat stock in the Auckland markets, is welcome to our graziers who will, in a measure, be compensated for the miserable returns, netted last season for turnips and feed stock The elements of uncertaiutly, which so largely characterises our stock markets in the Auckland Provinoe, is a great drawback to the farming community, particularly to stockbreeders, inasmuch, as no one can iell even for a few weeks ahead, what the market prices will be, consequently graziers have in self-defence, to allow a much larger margin than should be necessary in the purchase of stores, and even then frequently come out of it with but little for their risk and trouble. No hope of much change for the bettor in this respect can be looked for until there is an outlet, ny way of export, for all surplus fat stock, especially sheep and lambs. This would equalise prices throughout the year and give a stability to the value of fat stock, to wlich the Auckland markets have, for some years, been a stranger.

Hops in Bacon Curing.—A new use has been discovered for hops—namely the curing of bacon. It is found that a sprinkling of hops in tho brine when bacon and hams are put in piklc adds greatly to the flavour of both, and enables them to be kept an indefinite period.

Smut in Oats.—The experiments to prevent smut iu oats carried on last year at one of the stations in the United States showed that sprinkling the seed with a solution of either lysol or formalin entirely prevented tho smut. When the seed was sprinkled with a solution of potassium sulphide a very small percentage of smut appeared. In some tests in soaking the seed it was found that three-tenths of 1 per cent, solution of formalin preveuted smut when the seed was soaked one hour. None of the treatments injured the seeds in tho least. t % t

Hand Skimming v. Separator.— "The story is told," says the " Rural New Yorker," "of anlowa dairyman who skimmed his milk at home by hand, and satisfied himself that there was not enough butter fat in it to give even a smell of butter. A separator mau challenged him to bring a wimple of his skim milk for analysis. Tho challenge was accepted, and the te.-t showed that 2 per cent, of butter fat had beon left in the milk. In other words", nearly half of tho butter iu that milk had been fed to calves and pigs. This is pretty expensive pig feeding, even at the present low prices for butter. It was certainly an eye opener for that dairyman. The human hund is superior to many machines, but when it comes to skimming milk, no hand skimmer can beat tho separator for getting the butter fat out of a given weight of everyday milk." • t t t

Fruit Prksehvikc;.—As to the preservation of fruit in natural colours, writes «' J.F.C.1)." in the " Rural New Yorker," I have -10 varieties of grapes and several varieties of tomatoes, put up 10 aud 11 months ago, which now are bright and natural as when taken from thevines. The tomatoes are all shades of red and yellow, and the grapes are all of the black and purple kinds. On the light coloured grapes there seems to be a' dtposit that hides the natural colour. This same deposit on purple has grapes the appearance of the natural bloom. I expect to try this solution on other fruits this coming season. My formula was : 18 parts water, one part formaldehyde, and one part jilycorine. The water used by me was boiled and filtered, but I am of opinion that distilled water would be better. I have been trying in vain to find something that would preserve the coloui in the strawberry , I would be croatlv pleased to succeed in this. t X t

Barbed Wire in Fences.—Mr James Morrison, of Guildford, Western Australia, writes to the press as follows : "I see the Commissioner of Lauds is making a minute that all barbed wiie of boundary fencing shall be on the inside of a fence.' Which is the inside of a fence joiutlv erected? As one who Ins for many year.'* erected fences with one or more barbed wires in them, I would state that the plan I find the bo>t, in all ways, is to put the barbed wire "in and out,' viz., on the outside of one post aud inside of the next, the whole length of the fence. The effect is that it supports the fence, and on the posts only is it exposed to either side, and an odd barb that can be hammered down. Between the post it is protected by the plain wires running through the middle of the posts. When placed on one side of the po;<ts, after a few years a pressure of stock or anything from the opposite side very often causes the stipples to draw, several panels coming down at once and leaving a large gap along the fence. In the zig-zag plan of putting up, the pressure against any one post is counteracted by the resistance of the post on either side. The barbed wire is principally to keep t'tock from putting their heads through the fence, " mouebiug,'' and in all my fences 1 put it below the top wire—never on ths top. By the above plan you will see no damage can be done to stock on either side of a fene? until they go to go through it."

Rearing Hkii-'krs for tiik Dairy.— Mr Freer Tnouger, the well-known European dairy expert, writing in comment upon the oalf-raising experiment at the lowa (United States) station, states as follows :—" There is one important point, however, which is not covered by the experiment. In the raising of heifers for the specific purpose of developing them into the best'l'iirv (•<>w- j , the kind of food they eat and its tendencies become a very imporant consideration. What we lvqu re in such a heifer is to develop the organs of maternity as much as p.i.-sib'e. For this reason wo need a more nitro renoas food than maize meal. The future cow is either made or spoiled very muci i'i the first year of the heifer's growth. The effect of food highly carbonaceous in character on the reproductive and maternal organs should be more thoroughly studied. English breeders are well aware that the feeding of rnnhiAse-, linseed, and such foods, which are almost ptiio carbon, to a bull, will, if cjntinued long enough, have nearly the effect of castriti'in. It will destroy iho j.ower of reproduction and make him fat and s'uggi-h. Many show animals which are fed in such a manner, with the object of obtaining a smooth and glossy ckiu, are ruined for breeding purpos(s If the female be fed in the same way, it wiil have a simitar effect, to a greater or less proportion as the dairy propensities are strong or weak. So marked is this effect of carbonaceous foods upon the breeding functions that, many "wise breeders of dairy stock refuse to get up their animals for the show ring because of the injury in this respect to both male and female from high conditioning. t■ X +

The Weighbridge.—A correspondent of the Live Stock Journal says that the conservative habits of the typical farmer English farmer are hardly ever seen more clearly than in his persistent reluctance to use the public weighbridg; to ascertain the live weight of his fat stock. The American is quicker than the English farmer to adopt and assimilate new practices iu the conduct of his business, once ho can discern a potential advantage in doing so. The general method still in vogue in Great Britian is to sell cattle " by the lump " —that is to-say, at so much per animal. And the great majority of farmers are content to rely —not on the fCiles. but on their own judgment as to the weight of the animal, and the purchaser, of course does the same. The point turns on tho question of judgment, in which the purchaser, being more constantly in practice, has generally the best of it. Ho has an advantage, too, in the fact that he cau buy if ho sees a bargain, and decline to do so if he deems tho price too high. And he can go round the market till he fiuds the bargain he want?, or can hold off till afterneon in a dull market and then buy at his own price. Here, again, the butchers have an advantage, inasmuch as they are buying, and killing, and weighing every week; if this will not sharpen tho edge of a man's judgment in tho value of fat stock, it is difficult to say what wiil. And •so it follows that the butcher is generally is the position of the man who can say, "heads I win, and tails you lose." To protect himself as he thinks, the farmer takes care to ask more than he is prepared to accept for his cattle. If he gets it—which he hardly ever does—well and good : and. if ho cannot get what he asks, he can climb down whore he coukl not climb up. But in many cases ic will be fcen that the butcher has hold of the best end .f the stick, so far as buying beef by the lump is concerned. t t t

Pasteurising Skim Milk. Thofinding of the second British Royal Commission on Tuberculosis should give the pasteurisation of milk a lift in this colony, writes " Sylvan " in the Sydney Mail. Tho Commission found that, according to Professor Bang's investigations, the cases of hereditary tuberculosis do not amount to more than 0.3 to 0.4 per cent., while the disease is largely communicated to calves after birth through the youngsters drinking milk from tuberculosis cows. In Australia the calf must get very much the worst of the factory system. The germs of disease are of greater specific gravity than the fat globules in milk, so that when everything is whirled round by tho centrifugal action of the separator the germs stick to the largest portion of milk and are du'y carried away to tho skim milk tank. Thus the danger of giving raw skim milk is greater than wheu tho whole milk is used. It seems that farmers are at last offered a fairly solid fact to lay hold of, and it is that unpasteurized skim milk is in all probability the fir<-t cause of a large proportion of the disease that gets into their young stock, TV-y have been advised to boil their skim milk, but if every farmer were to set to work to boil his share when it comes home from the factory, the labour would be worth nearly as much as tho food. A correspondent has written to me suggesting that the milk should be boiled in a large tank at tho factory and then served out to the suppliers. This is not new. In Denmark, when the cream only is pasteurised for butter-mak-ing, the skim milk is pasteurised after leaving the separator. At tho Cudgewa. factory, in Victoria, a steam-pipe runs from the skim milk pump. When the tank is filled with skim milk a valve neur tho boiler is opened and the skim milk is run up to IGO deg. F. The suppliers take it away while it is hot. It is thus fed in a sweet condition, scours in tho calves are missed, and the young animals have a much better time all round. Tho question of cost is sure to crop up, but the only guide is that the Cudgewa suppliers nre on a co-operative basis, and they are willing to pay for the steam. The plan is a good one and should be considered in this colony.