THE YEOMAN.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume II, Issue 62, 7 March 1868, Page 3

THE YEOMAN.

THE GARDENER’S CALENDAR FOP. MARCH. You may still sow early Dutch, stone or nimble nine-week turnips, sow them thin, and you will have some to draw and can use the tops as spring greens. Sow caraway and they will ripen their seed next December, but if not sown until spring they will not ripen until next summer. Sow reddish, lettuce, cress, spinach and celery. Transplant lettuce, cabbage, cauliflowers and leeks. Budding should be finished early this month. Plant eschalots for green salads. Have in mind that plenty of manure is the best preveattaive against blight in the cabbage tribe.

Variegated Maize.— We have been shown some specimens of the “ Zea Japonica, folvariegata,” grown by Mr. Sims, of Brighton. This plant is new to the colony, and is likely to become fashionable, as particoloured foliage is in almost as much favour as flowers just now. It has leaves striped like those of the old fashioned rib grass, only more delicately coloured, some of them being nearly white, and semi-transparent. It also bears a small cob of sweet corn, useful for culinary operations as practised in America. The seed was imported last year from England, by Messrs. Law, Somner, and Co.—“ Australasian.”

To Fatten Geese.— The “ Irish Farmers’ Gazette” says, to fatten geese, put up three or four into a clarkned room, and give each bird one pound of oats daily, thrown on a pan of water. In fourteen days they will he found almost too fat. Never shut up less than two together, as they pine if left alone. New Oat Blight in Australia.— A Western journal states that a new and most destructive species of blight has attacked the oat crops in the vicinity of Lispower, and at the farms situated near the Bald-hills, whence it is traced as far as Yarram Yarram on the one side, and for a great distance amongst the farms to the north of the latter place, on the other. The blight referred to is a description of insect. Mr. Elliot, who is the largest settler in the neighborhood where it was first observed states that whole paddocks have been so completly destroyed that they are now being mown down or thrown open for cattle. In some instances wheat has also suffered so badly that the scythe is at work, and the cattle admitted. Mr. Petri, who lives but a short distance from the Hopkins-, hill, states that his whole breadth of crop is completely destroyed. The ravages of the insect give the ear a prematurely ripe appearance, and on opening the leaves myriads of them are disturbed in nearly every instance. Fattening Poultry. —The London “Field.” states that poultry, properly fed, will acquire all the fatness needful for marketing purposes in a fortnight or three weeks at most. Their diet should be Indian, oat, or barley meal, scalded in milk or water—the former is the best, as it will expedite the fattening process. They should be f d early in the morning, at noon, and also in the evening just before going to roost. A plentiful supply of pure fresh water, plenty of gravel and sliced cabbage or turniptops. If the fowls are required to he very fat, some trimmings of fresh mutton suet may be choped up and scalded with their other feed, or they may be boiled in milk alone and poured over the meal. This renders the flesh firmer than it otherwise would be. When fit to kill, feeding should be stoped for twelve hours or more, that the intestines may become comparatively empty. The “Shorthorn Intelligence” of a contemporary says that the value of the pure Duchess blood is salieatly illustratrated by the fact that Captain Gunter, who is so fortunate as to possess that strain, is selling his bull calves at 000 guineas apiece as fast as he can breed them. At that price he has lately disposed of two—viz., 2nd Duke of Collihgham out of Duches 84, by 3rd Duke of Wharfdale; and Duke of Tregunter, also by 3rd Duke of Wharfdale out of Duches 93. Mr. Rich, of Didmarton, Gloucestershire, purchased the first, and Mr. Roberts, of Lillingtone Darrel, Bucks, the second. Captain Gunter has still one bull calf on sale, the sth Duke of Wharfdale out of Duches 30. Rosedale, the six-year-old cow, bred by Lady Pigot, and purchased at the Duke of Montrose’s sale in August last for 225 guineas,, has arrived safely at Montreal, having calved on her passage out. She was purchased for Mr Cochrane, of Lower Canada, as was a 200-guinea bull calf—Knight of Sir George, by prince of the Realm out of Windsor’s Queen. — “ Pall-mall Gazette.” Substitute for Chloroform.— Chloroform, however great a boon to tortured humanity, kills one in fifteen hundred of those who have the misfortune to require its aid, and attention is now being directed to the discovery of a safer anaesthetic. Strange to say, choke damp, the collier’s deadliest enemy, has been selected to furnish so true a friend of man, like a buried skull nursing the tender roots of a violet. Inquirers have not yet quite reached the substitute of chloroform, but they have fallen on an intoxicant composed of the pit gas, chlorine, and water, which, taken internally, will, it is believed, produce the same anaesthetic effect. We are sadly afraid that if it prove palatable, the choke damp will lead to a groat deal moiv “Wetting” than at present exists, while disease Will come into high fashion and favour. “That dreadful toothache,” or the “severe attack of rheumatism,” wil 1 be the proof conclusive of the necessity of many a dram, and addition to the “phial” may become as strong a social evil as love of the “bottle.”—.“Notes on News,” in “ Sportsman.”