FACTS FOR FARMERS.

Waikato Times, Volume VII, Issue 357, 27 August 1874, Page 2

FACTS FOR FARMERS.

There is much trouble in keeping oata from growing "with other cereals. In some way a few oats wiil get among wheat and barley, unless very great care is used. By using a brine strong enough to float the oats, they may be taken out of the seed ; then by using freshly slaked lime, the salt may be decomposed, and the seed sown without danger of . destroying its vitality. l> ' J A gentleman asks whether it will do to apply lime in winter. Our experience is decidedly in favor of putting it on in winter. It is a singular fact that cold water dissolves Kirfe bdtfer'tnan warm. The best season for, getting a solution of lime, into the soil is during cold rains. It takes !'7oo parts of cold water to dissolve one of lime. Hence we must have the lime at the surface at the time of the greatest rainfall. It is better to spread it on a frozen surface, because it will becomje. .dissolved before it sinks into the soil. It has been found that the total cost of agricultural education in Ireland, furnished through the instiumentality of one model farm with, an attached agricultural college, several minor model farms, and over 200 separate agricultural schools, is less than .£lO,OOO per annum. The majority of the model fanuiK make a yearly profit, while the chief farm at CJ-labiievin. (although hampered with a costly system of education), by which mere profits is subordinated to the instruction of the pupils (and occasional failures pecuniarily are risked for the sake of experiment), has made an average yearly profit of £600. The practical results of. this educational system hme ] been to furnish to Irish agriculture and its connected industries a large number of superior farmers, land stewards, managers of agricultural implement depots and seed establishments, as well as many persons who have become connected with stook traffic and other branches of business dependent upon agriculture more or less directly. Figs may be propagated very readily by means of layers, or by cuttings. If you have any old stock plants, with suckers from the ground, make several cuts in the latter near the base, then bank up th'e soil around them and hammer it firm. Cuttings may be made, say two buds long, square and smooth below and close to the bottom bud, and say half an inch above the upper one. Prepare a shallow, box of pure sand, with some little drainage in the bottom, and insert the cuttings in , it their whole length, merely allowing the upper bud to show at the surface. Set the box on a gentle hot-bed, and in a short time the plants will begin to grow. Give plenty of air and water, but do it judiciously. What is called liard-wood or; out-door cuttings may be made up about six or eight inches long, placed in the open ground, in light, mellow soil, with the top bud even with the surface. Mulch the soil Slightly, and water now and then. A novice will meet with failures for a while, but success will follow perseverance. Respecting the best means of -destroying ferns Mr J. Faner, in a letter' to the dustralasian f . says : — " Clear off the grounds all wood, and closely mow the ferns and remove the tops, then harrow the ground well with a pair of close heavy harrows. Sow with equal quantities of prairie grass and crested dog's tail, harrow in, and* roll. Thereafter, four times a year, at the commencement of each of the ' seasons,' roll with a heavy roller. Thus the ferria will be killed, the grass benefitted, and the ground will become consolidated and so unsuitable for the growth of ferns." A New Zealand correspondent of the same journal says : — " The only way we can get rid of the fern here is by ploughing tHe land, laying it down in English grasses, and heavily stocking it with young cattle. Cattle are very fond of the young shoots, and by nipping them as they appear above the surface it has the effect of killing the plant in the course of a year. Should the surrounding pasture be tempting, it would be necessary to fence any portion thus treated. Ploughing in the heat of summer has been proved an effectual remedy in destroying ferns. I fear, however, that these remedies would be considered in Australia worse than the disease, but if the land is situated near the seaside, where English grasses would succeed, it might well repay the outlay."

The City Press says, bat for tbo notice taken of it by the Urban Club, tbo anniversary, both of the birth and death of Shakespeare, the 23rd of April, would pass over in London apparently almost unobserved. The 23rd' It also the day on which Cervantes (the author of "Don Quixo.te") and Wordsworth, the poet of the lakes — " he who uttered 1 nothing base " — also died. The three or four days preceding and following the 23rd aro also memorable ones ip tho literary calendar. On the 18th Benjamin Franklin, "%■ great experimental philosopher, a consummate politician, and a parngon of common sense," paid the debt of nature ; on the 22nd, Fielding, tho novelist, waa born j on the 19 h\ Lot d B) ron died ; and on the 241h, Daniel Defoe, of whoso " Kobinson Crusce " every boy will endorse Dr Johnson's opinion, that nobody ever laid it down without wifhing it longer. On the 25th, Cowper, " the sweetest of our didactic joets" as DrDoran terms him — died, 'BerSatyifourkjieiiri* ' ago. Mv E. J. B»iloj wag bor,n ife 1817..