FARMERS’ COLUMN.

Waipukurau Press, Issue 296, 15 August 1908, Page 6

FARMERS’ COLUMN.

The Sydney wool stiles closed firm at late rates. There was a brisk demand for new clips. Greasy sold to 10|d and scoured to 19d.

The low-lying country on the' seaboard between Seadown and Temuka is still in a very sodden state, and it will be some time before farmers can get their teams on the ground for ploughing purposes.

At the Onga Onga yards on Thursday there was a good entry of sheep, but few gcattle. Prices realised were about on a par with late rates, There was a good attendance. Pigs are in great demand at the present time, reports the “ Hawera Star.” They are a much more profitable investment than calves, which are often kept a year to fetch only 16s. At Gillies and Nalder’s Manaia sale forward store pigs made 325. The opinion is expressed that they will sell like hot cakes for the next month or two. In answer to a correspondent the “ Leader ” says : —Buttermilk for pigs: Buttermilk weighs about 8.71 b per gallon. Therefore 15 cans of 40 quarts (10 gallons) each hold 13001 b of buttermilk. It is estimated that when fed alone 61b of buttermilk, fed to pigs twelve weeks old, is equal to 11b of maizemeal ; but neither buttermilk nor maize should be fed alone for best results. A good proportion is lib of meal to 51b of milk.

A good many people (says “St. James’ Budget”) are wondering just now what useful purpose in nature is fulfilled by caterpillars. So devastating have been their inioads on the fruit orchards that the despairing farmers have gone out after them with guns loaded with blank cartridge and wads, which will probably do more harm than good. It is a curious law of nature, however, that one pest is kept inorder by another. Destroy one, and the other thrives and multiplies. The French have discovered that, and are passing stringent laws for the preservation of birds that cat the grubs that eat the crops. English farmers have of late made a determined onslaught on the sparrow, which, by the way, often does business in our rose trees. One club in the eastern counties, having its habitat no great way from orchards invaded by caterpillars, boasts of having 1 killed forty-nine thousand sparrows in a single year. It looks as if the sparrow clubs had upset the balance of nature, and the fruit farmers were reaping the result.