Untitled

Wairarapa Standard, Volume II, Issue 58, 8 February 1868, Page 3

Destroying Tiiisti.es. —Many years ago I heard it said that cutting Canada thistles in the fall of the moon in June, and again in the full of the moon in August, the same season would kill them. The idea carried was that the particular phase of the moon killed them. I cut them as aforesaid, and it killed them. I was not inclined to yield to whims or superstitions, and searched for the cause. I found that at certain times of the year, or at least that there were times of the year, when the thistle was hollow’ and the cutting of them at any time, while hollow, would kill them, simply because the rain would fill them with water and cause their decay.—“ Correspondent Scientific American.”

A new species of clover, named the “ Lespodosa Stratia,” supposed to he from China, and introduced into Georgia in 1862, is spoken very highly of. It chokes out all other vegetation, and on good soil grows to the height of two feet.

The instances where men are either satisfied or successful in special farming are very few. Even dairy farming, which is more successful than any other, gives the house a look of dilapidation. Notoriously special fruit growers are disappointed; and we have yet to see a dozen who have got rich at the business, while they are tens and tens of thousands of general farmers who have accumulated from ten to fifty thousand dollars. To make a horse shine, take a piece of sheepskin, with the wool on, oil slightly, rul> him smooth, and this will make a darkcolored horse shine beautifully. A lady writes from Illinois that she has had several years’ experience with bees, and they pay her better than the same amount invested in cows, taking one year with another, and with much less work. She has sold more dollars’ worth of honey from seven swarms of bees than of butter from the same number of cows, and has thirteen good new swarms. Alpacas. —The following will be interesting as a comparison between the failure of the experiment of the introduction of Alpacas in New Zealand and their success in the colony of New South Wales where they appear to have flourished well, and to be highly esteemed From the Bathurst “ Times ” we learn that a small flock were recently sheared with the following results as to weight of fleece :—One wether gave lllbs., one ditto gave Dibs., two wethers gave j7-)lbs., one ewe gave BHbs., one ditto gave s;{lbs., two ewes gave each'4l bs one ram gave Silos. The remainder of the flock were all wethers, and averaged slightly less. The animals gave very little trouble, but from their great size and weight, to hands were required to attend to them the legs being tied. Rats. —A heartless ruffian, much patronized by rats having tried in vain mix vomica, phosphorus paste, and improved rat-traps, has at last hit upon a plan which has relieved him of his unwelcome visitors, and has the inhumanity to publish the expedient in the papers for the benefit of other householders afflicted as he was. “ You fry,” tersely wrote the inhuman barbarian, “a number of bits of sponge in dripping, and place the savoury morsals in the rats’ runs. By-and-by you will not he troubled with rats any more.” A magniloquent contemporary has brought the tremendous force of its eloquence to bear upon this discredit to the human race in a leader in which a condemning public is invited to— Look at the frightful barbarity of the plan! The sponge attracts moisture from the stomach and intestines of the miserable creature, swells, into an immovable mass, ami the animil dies. But how? Of enteritis—in tortures inconceivable —worse probably than is the creature were flung into a slow fire. A burni ig internal inflamation sets in, the hapless brute rolls and writhes in unspeakable agony; it thirsts, it vomits, is convulsed, frantic, fevered with an anguish which lasts all the while that mortification is preparing; and not till many hours, perhaps days, after the sponge is swallowed does the gentle hand of Death arrest the piteous pain and dismiss the tortured life. Let us kill what we must kill, but but if we hope for mercy from the Bower higher than ourselves, let us avoid such devilish cruelty. We cannot doubt that if the devilish agriculturist, who has thus ruthlessly freed himself and his stacks from rats, happens to read the “ Telegraph ” he will fry no more sponge, and will resignedly hand ovir his store to the harmles little rodents in which our contempory takes such a tender interest. — “ Pali“ Mall Gazette.” Prospects op Farming.— The “ Southern Cross” of the 17th, remarking on the prospects of farming, says:—Having regard to these points, the question hence arises—Will it pay to grow grain ? We reply, unhesitatingly, that it will pay. In the first place, New Zealand has not, for many years, produced anything like sufficient cereals for home consumption. Very rarely has Auckland stood in that position. There are settlements in the Province, older than the City proper and its surroundings, which, to this day, import all the breadstuff's they require. We may notice Whangarci and the Bay of Islands, as affording illustrations to the point. Even Waiapu, about which so much has been said as a model settlement, now imports the greater portion of its breadstuff's. It requires no demonstration to prove that such a state of things cannot last, if the Province is to prosper. In a country where there is so much waste land, where the population is small and scattered, and where manufacturing industries are in their infancy (such as do exist, or do not exist at all), it is plain that the foundation of our prosperity must be laid in the cultivation of the soil.

“ Do you consider lager beer imoxicating ? ” was asked of a german witness. “Yell,” replied the witness, “ashfordat, I gant zay. I trink feesty to seexty classes a tay, end it tosh not hurt me, but I don’t know how it would pe if a man vash to make a hog of hisself.” A Very Gentle Hint. —A Scotch boy had been sent with a message to a lady, and having delivered it, seemed in no hurry to depart. Being asked if there was anything else that his mother had bid him say, Jock stammered out, “ She said I wasna to seek Jonything for comin,’ but if ye gied me’t I was to tak’ it.”

A lady, meeting a girl who had lately left her service, inquired, u Well, Mary, where do you live now?” “Please, ma’am, I don’t live nowhere now,” rejoined the girl; “ I’m married.” An old Irish officer, after a battle, ordered the dead and the dying to be buried pell-mell. Being told that some were alive, and might be saved, “ Oh, bedad ! ” said he, “if you were to pay any attention to what thcv say, not one of them would allow that lie was dead.”