FARM CHAT.

Waikato Times, Volume XIV, Issue 1221, 27 April 1880, Page 2

FARM CHAT.

Pleuro. Since this terrible disease became prevalent, it seems rather strange that no party has suggested that animals in the first stages of it, should be treated hoiiHupatliically. Arc fears generally entertained that the malady is incuable, and that no treatment whatever can arrest its progress, once it affects a beast 1 This is taking a one-aided view of the matter — looking at the dark side. According to J. Moore, M. 11. C. Y. S., pleuro is as amenable to proper remedies as any other affection. If this assertion can be proved by facts in the way of cures, the intelligence will be welcomed by some who are ready to give up in despair. I shall quote what Mr Moore says about the first symptoms : — "The author strongly impresses upon every cow-owner the importance and necessity, for his own sake, of noticing particularly when the first symptoms of the disease show themselves ; for at this time it is quite manageable ; and if every cow had the remedies given as soon as she became affected, very few, if any, would have to be sent to the butcher. The timely discovery of the first symptoms of the malady, and the administration of the appropriate remedies, would very considerably lessen the fatality of the disease, and be a great saving to every farmer. In many cases which the author has treated, the cows were quite well within a few hours after the disease began. The medicine checked it at once, and permanently." The following are the remedies given according to symptoms : Aconitum, Bryonia, Aresonicum, Ammonium, Causticum, Phosphorus, and Sulphur. When pleuro was ra ing in Auckland years ago, I knew at least one farmer who found Aconite a most valuable and efficacious medicine in the first symptoms, when a cow seemed dull and listless, her milk dropping off, and having perhaps a short cough, and careless about her food. Both in Britain and America, pleuro is still giving a deal of trouble, and is the cause of great losses. Some districts are badly affected. The following from the March number of The American Agriculturalist gives some details of pleuro-pneu-monia in Pennsylvania. '' Under the provisions of the Act of Assembly passed last winter, Governor Hoyt placed the whole matter of dealing with pleuro-pneumonia in the hands of Secretary Edge of the Board of Agriculture. Since the Ist of April. 110 animals have been killed, 31 herds containing 595 animals have been closely quarantined and regularly visited by Veterinary surgeons ; when any animal showed unmistakeable symptoms of infection, it was at once appraised and killed In addition to this a large number of herds supposed by their owners to be infected, and so reported by them, have been examined, and all cattle imported from Europe have been placed in the hands of the State authorities for quarantine. Since April last, the cost for the work has not exceeded #2,750, of which $1,200.50 has been paid for animals appraised and killed. At present but 8 herds are in quarantine, and of these four are considered clear of the disease, but not beyond the danger of communicating it to other stock. All herds are kept in quarantine for three months after the last case of disease.

Job's tears Grass. This grass, (Ceoic Lachri/ma) a native of the East Indies, has been introduced into this Province, and is spoken of by some parties as a valuable su mmer fodder plant. I saw a specimen at the late Horticultural Show, and I have also seen it growing. It is a somewhat curious grass, seems to grow f reely, and produces abundance of flowers and seed*. It is propogated by di\ iding the roots and by seeds. Its chief advantage is that it is a perennial plant. It will bear cutting at certain intervals during the summer, and will throw out fresh shoots after being cut. On ordinary land it attains the height of about two feet. It might do to be planted in a small paddock, or in a corner of the garden, or orchard ; but it will not take the place of maize or sorghum as summer feed for dairy stock. It has not the sweet taste of either of those valuable plants, nor \\i\\ it throw out the same quantity of feed.

Tasmania. What with pleuro, poor grain crops, and wretched price for produce, we shall have to ship off to Tasmania, which appears to be the place in the world to get along, if the following, lately written to a home paper is correct. The writer among other things says :: — ■ "As to carters and ploughmen, they are not to be thought of except as luxuries to be tasted only, not used or possessed. So difficult i& it to obtain a good drivel of a horse team, that I know of so toe getting 50s. per week. Hundreds of opportunities for doing well are continually presenting to the careful and thrifty labonrev or farmer. At the risk of being denied space in your columns, I will give an instance. A canny thrift steps forward and offers a rental for a good farm, on which the owner or previous tenant could scarce exist. He is accepted, and clears from £500 to £1000 a-year, to the utter bewilderment of his neighbour-'. Another pays attention to a patch of land, 1 acre only, and sells from it grass seed to the value of £81 m 4 years. An old man enseonsed between the hills devotes himself to the cultivation of raspberries and and black currants ; his returns for the iirst year A\cie £1500. A currant tree in hi* garden has reached the extraordinary height of '2(i feet. A neighbour of mine <il.so began lify at £10 a-year, purchased rycvutly at JI^OOQ a property Uuit Ws^

£10,000, but then he is a working man who attends to his business, and he is not ashamed of it as ue are prone to be in the present nge. A labourer from De\onshire armed here and accepted wages 10->. per week and his rations ; his master saw that he meant m ork, and speedily raised his pay. He still kept plodding on, and quite recently paid the v. riter t'looo for a small sheep run. This ■\\ ill show you there is every prospect for the industrious classes. " After reading this somewhat " tall account, if any small fanner cannot make a " do " of it in Waikato, he -will know where next to pitch his tent.

Experimental Farm. Some time since an expei'imental farm was established in Victoria. It is rather an extensive concern, containing 4,500 acres of land. An interesting report was published early in this year ; and it appears that the condition of the farm was very satisfactory. The farm is divided into portions ranging from 40 acres to nearly 3000. The whole lias been fenced. During the year, or rather ten months, 247 acres were grubbed and cleared, and of these 120 acres were ploughed, 10 acres being subsoiled to the depth of 22 inches for the reception of vines, olives, and other fruit trees. Several patches of wheat, oats and barley, were sowed in order to ascertain the difference in the results from shrivelled and plump grain, the manager giving it as his opinion that, though ihe appearance of the corn from the former was equal to that from the latter, he did not think the result would be so. The kinds sown were — shrivelled wheat, London straw purple wheat, Major Plain's purple straw wheat, Borne manured and some not ; white Tuscan wheat, white Paris wheat, Molt's prize white and red wheats — the last having taken the Ist prize at the Paris Exhibition of 1878. Some of the land had been cultivated on the Lois-Weedon system — that of leaving part of the laud fallow in the form of trenchss — but the cost of the trenching, when done by hand, was too expensive. The other grains sown were Potato, Norway, wliite Tartarian, and Swiss oats ; English and Cape barley and rye, and in all cases the seed treated with lime and urine was up two days before all the others. The seed is not allowed to remain in the pickle, but is placed in a half bushel basket which will not let the seed through, the oasket is immersed in the mixture, the fine grain rises to the surface and is skimmed off, and the basket is kept in the pickle tAvo minutes, and then removed and drained off ; the seed is then turned on to a sheet to dry, sprinkled with dry wood ashes and lime' and sowed soon afterwards. Yeoman.