FACTS FOR FARMERS. NEW PLAN OF WASHING SHEEP.

Waikato Times, Volume VII, Issue 337, 11 July 1874, Page 2

FACTS FOR FARMERS. NEW PLAN OF WASHING SHEEP.

Letters patent were granted on Monday, the 25th May to Me&srs John Mackenzie and D. H. Dow. sheep farmers iv the Western district, for an ingenious invention, by which a. difficulty lias been overcome that has long been experienced in connection with 'washing sheep by the hot water soak and cold water spout process. The difficulty hitherto has been to get the sheep from the hot water and through the spouts sufficiently regularly and rapidly to pi-event a chill setting in, by which the wool is rendered dry and brittle after washing, bistead of smooth and silky. The former state of the wool is caused by the chill the sheep receives, preventing what is known as. the rising of the yolk. By the method hitherto in use the sheep have been dragged by men from the soak to the spouts with much labour, while neither sufficient rapidity noi regularity has been obtained to prevent the chilling of the sheep, and the attendant effects alluded to. From an inspection of Messrs Mackenzie and Dow's invention, it is seen that tlie sheep, as they emerge from the hot watei\soak, wide enough to admit the animals in single file, and set at aw incline, np which the animals follow each other, and enter a circular pen constructed to hold two sheep, divided from each other in two. compartments. The pen stands above the spout-trough,, and works on a pivot, which is revolved by one man at a capstan. The. first sheep in the gangway having entered the pen, ahnlf revolution by the man at the capstan shifts it round to the further side of the pen, and secures it by a selfacting gate, through which it & observed by the succeeding sheep, which is thus decoyed to step into the other compartment. The next half revolution sots in motion an ingenious apparatus by which the bottom of the pen containing No. 1 drops, letting the sheop drop down a shoot to tho mail at the spouts, and at tho same time brings No. 2 round to the. position just vacated by No. 1 ; No. 2in its turn acting as a decoy to No. 3, which, Avhen No. 2 disappears through tho trap, afcts as a decoy to No. 4 ; and so on, one sheep following the other and dropping through the trap as fast as the capstan revolves. The self-acting arrangements by which the sheep axe secured upon entering the pen, and by whichthe two' semicircular traps in tho tiottbm alternately drop and regain their level positioii, are A'cry ingenious. Them is. no pulling or hauling about the sheep which, follow each other up the gangway and flown the trap with unbroken regularity, and the rapidity of the process is such that in ihe trial under notice not more than an avarage of a minute per sheep was taken up from their entrance on the gangway to their final passing out to tho field from under tho spouts. Tho decoy principlo in the above is the samo that is taken advantage of in the simple arrangement for drafting sheep by a swing-gato, of which Mr Dow is, also tho imentor and introdncer into the colony in 1848. — Melbourne Leader.

Bones as Manure. — It is found cheaper to disyylvu or grind boncu llu^i to <|Uimy J.iiie&ione, crush

it, and cany it to the land as a fertilizer ; hence the enormous commerce in bones^ of which England imports 100,000 tons, per annum,, valued at£GGO,OOO, whilst those collected at home are computed at nearly as much more. Bones of almost all animals, are now imported ;> a articles of commerce ; and, whether ild or domesticated animals, all are made to yield p.irts of their skeletons for some useful purpose. As a whole, the fanning of England is the best in the world. The farms are usually large, and the farmers men of intelligence and of large capital. More attention is paid there than anywhere else to the making of manure ; grain is largely grown, and the system of a regular rotation of crops, to maintain the fertility of the soil, is ulmost universal. Over a large part of the country the cash profit of farming is secured by the sale of grain, but the fertility of the laid, the ability to produce grain, is kept up by the feeding of a heavy stock of cattle or sheep, which ai*e kept mainly for the sake of the manure they make, and which are largely fed on purchased food — in great part oil-cake and Indiancorn imported from America. Such a complete s} r stem can hardly be earned out on so large a $eale on many farms in this country, for few of our farmers have the necessary capital ; but it is, after all, tho system toAvard which we should work and to which we must look for the permanent future of our agriculture Our farming can never be perfect, nor anything like it, until we shall have reached the pdint of a constant improvement of the soil.