FARM, GARDEN, AND ORCHARD NOTES.

Waikato Times, Volume XXX, Issue 2462, 21 April 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

FARM, GARDEN, AND ORCHARD NOTES.

Wood Ashes and Farmyard Manure are both good inanuro. But the mixing of them loads to a loss of most important fertilising properties. The woodashos set free the ammonia iu tho farmyard manures, by which the latter loses the bulk of it.s manurial value.

Cows Gonk Dry.—A herd of miloh cows near Launceston, Tasmania, were very badly off for drinking water, and quenched their thirst in the brackish tidal wr-.ter of tho Tiimar river. As a consequence, they have all gone dry. Best Pears.—The Editor of the Garden is selecting the be*t pears, lie has already chosen five and wants to know which is to he the sixth, and wo shall not agree if he does not choose tho Seclcel. These nro his choice—]. Jargonelle. 2. Marie Louise. 3. Doyenn6 du Cornice. 4. Winter Nelis. 5. Josephine de Marines. Pakis Gkeen for Spraying.—A Pennsylvania fruit-grower, after five years of failure in applo-srrowing, owing to the attack of insects, has had a fine crop of apples this last seasoa. His success was due to tsprayiug with Paris L'reeii. Before he used this chemical he

had not had a bushel of sound apples. Profitable Egg Production. — A Delaware man wrote that from hia poultry he had a yield of 12,547 eggs during the first eleven months of ISB7. He keeps about 125 hens through the winter, and in spring kills of one-half of them, including the old hens. This makes the yearly average about ninety-

four hens. The New Zealand Harvest.—The I statistics so far collected show the New Zealand harvest ju<t about completed to have been a bountiful one. In Canterbury the yield of wheat is estimated at 5,976,443 bushels, or nearly 2,000,000 bushels more than last year, and more than of 18S6. The increase in Otago will not be as large comparatively ; but still it is expected to be considerably more than last year. The Tobacco Plant.—Mr R. W Atkinson has shown (from an analysis of ashes) that the tobacco plant can only be cultivated successfully in soils rich in potash. Kainit is recommended as an artificial manure. The ashes of good

Virginian tobacco contain as much as 20 per cent, of potash, whereas those of English-grown tobacco do not. yield as much as 3 per cent.—Town and Country Journal. Pigs as Fern Eradicators.— A cor-

respondent writes : —The value of pigs iu destroying ferns is not generally known. If shut up in a small paddock infested by these, they will work great havoc amongst them in a very short space of time, and especially if the surface of the ground be slightly broken in parts as an inducement for them to burrow after the young roots. A friend of mine has almost completely

cleared a large area of land in this way, and warmly recommends the use of them to those of your readers who possess land covered with fcm». VINEGATI FtlOM Rlil'OSß APPLES. -Uood vinegar may be made from apples, without the use of sugar, any small or refuse samples may be used provided they are not rotten. Crush or grin.l the fruit and ex press the juice, which must be put in a clean cask, or, better, one tint has recently held vinegar, provided it lias not become musty. Leave the bung open, but covered with a pcice of tile or slate to keep the dust out, and fill up from time to time that all impurities may flow off. If a few gallous arc wanted for immediate use, put in an old vinegar cask, or add to 10 gallons of juice one or two bottles of vinegar, and it will hasten the change if kept in the sun or near the fire, in a few months, this will be good vinegar which will of course improve with age. Stkad's Rabhit Annimlator—Stead's Rabbit Anuihilator, of which we reported successful triule in Now Zealand some time ago, has been also tried at Coimadai with successful results in presence of a large gathering , of interested spectators, the' unanimous decision of all present being , that a fair trial was made, and that results showed conclusively that bi-sul-phide of carbon inhaled by rabbits is fatal to them, and that Stead's machine effectually forces the vapour into the burrow so tnat it is able to diffuse itself throughout. A drawback to the use of the machines is that the prices are high, but then one would serve for a large neighbourhood, so that it would prove a payable concern to anyone of a speculative turn to invest in one and hire it out to the surrounding property-holders. At Mildura, Messrs Chafl'ey Bros, have 1G exterminators in use, and are taking 24 for use on their irrigation settlement in South Australia.—Leader. Thk Hessian Fly.—Many so-called rust-proof wheats have sprung upon the confiding farmer, who finds that their loading characteristic is that they are not rust-proof. Now we have a Hessian fly proof wheat brought forward. We hope it is rightly christened. Professor Hillgard, of the Experimental Station, University of California, claims for a variety of wheat named the Mcssoyen that it is proof against attacks of the Hessian fly. On the poor soil of hi* station this wheat last harvest yielded .33 bushels to the acre ; while non-resisting wheats were destroyed or " reduced to the fraction of a crop " by the fly. Two other resisting sorts, the Atlanti and Volo, yielded 27 and 20 bushels per acre respectively. These three varieties are described as "solid stemmed," and originally dark, hard wheats, but f>ist becoming white and starchy without losing, so far, their resisting qualities Jkrsey Cattle.—Jersey cattle are increasing in repute amongst dairymen and breeders. In a paragraph on the subject the Express remarks :—The cream finds its way to the siufivc ! In like manner do the finer classss ot d.itry cattle aspire to the first rank amo:ig-?t competing breeds. The Jersey is a noteaMe example. In the thir-y or more dairies in Vermont, U.S. A., which makes over 3001b of butter to the cow annually, at least 90 per cent of the herds are thoroughbred or high-grade Jerseys. And further, the Hon. William Chaplin, speaking before the Vermont Board of Agriculture, at Montpellier observes: —"I venture to guess that among the 1000 or more dairies making over 2001b per cow, the Jersey blood is largely mingled. From 1870 to 1880 the. State's butter product increased from 17,000,000 to 23,000,000 lb., and I think a large part of the remarkable increase is due to the introduction of the Jersey cow." Fruit•Ußinvm! has been termed a lazy man's business. You had only to stick the trees in, and let them grow till they boru fruit ; and then all you had to do was to pull the fruit. Adam was the original fruitgrower, and did not know the curse of hard work till he was bundled out of Paradise ; and many of his offspring, glorying in a climate " where it was always afternoon," have become lotos eaters. Many a man has planted an orchard, and gone about his business, expecting that that orchard would pay him a profit. At ono time it might possible hive done so, in suoh circumstances. But the increase of inseot enemies and other more obscure causes of more recent origin make thought and physical effort necessary to preserve an orchard, even if it can be preserved then. But it is in the failure of our orchards that the profits of fruit-growing will be forwarded, if there ever are profits. If every man who planted an orchard could raise an abundant crop without any effort, fruit would be worth nothing. There would be too muoh of it. But the men who now overcome the obstacles in the way of successful orcharding will make money. We cannot got something for nothing in growing fruit any more than we can in any other direction. Petroleum a Wood Preserver.—lt has been found that free, light petroleum, applied warm, will penetrate—if the wood is^lry—almost as readily as water, and once thoroughly saturated, it is there to stay—water will not wash it out. ; 'I have been," says a correspondent of the Rural Now Yorker, "for years a producer of crude petroleum, and have yet to find

a board or piece of timber connected, or otherwise, with the works, that had been once saturated, which is not sound where

the oil touched it, while frequently parts not oiled hive decayed rapidly. I have

just finished taking down, and making over into smaller ones, a wooden storage tank, This was built over 18 years ago, and left exposed to all kind of weather. We did not find one rotten spot in it ; everything was sound. I have known oil barrels, and also small tanks, to be covered over with a thin layer of earth and remain so, in one case for over 14 years, and come out sound." He cspccialy states that saturated with this moisture repellant from nature's own marvellous laboratory, sills of barns and similar buildings will outlast any other part of the frame ; and he remarks that after the first two or three days the application does not expose wood to any increased risk from fire.

Soil Exhaustion. SoMßof the loner cultivated and once fertile lands of California are giving out. It ha* been a standing boast of farmers and fruit growers that the Hoil oF the state is so fertile that large crops may he produced year after year in succession without in any way diminishing , the product or impairing the normal fertility of the soil ; but it has been discovered that some portion at least of what is taken away must be returned to the soil or disastrous results are sure to follow. The wheat growers were the first to make acquaintance with this inexorable law of nature Whereas years ago it was nothing uncommon to harvest 40 to 50 bushels of wheat to the acre, now 10 to 15 is far oftener heard of, and only iu exceptional cases of great rarity is anything like 30 bushels or more known. So with the fruit growers. It has for many years been their boast that orchards and vineyards needed nothing beyond an abundant supply of moisture to keep them in a perfectly fruitful condition. Entire dependence was placed upon irrigation to maintain the normal fertility of the soil. True enough, with an abundance of water, the trees and vines have done marvellously well. But the inevitable result is fast making itself known. The Sun Francisco Chronicle attributes the decay of orchard and the prevalence of noxious insects to the same cause—the decline of fertility in the soil. It says : — The melancholy array of orange orchards given over to the scale, and of vineyards destroyed by phylloxera or some mysterious diseaso, point inevitably to the conclusion. So much dependence has been placed upon the supposed inoxhaustable fertility of the soil, that that fertility is gradually becoming exhausted, and as a consequence, orchard and vineyard arc in a fit condition to fall an easy prey to the attacks of the manifold infect pests always ready to attack an enfeebled growth Had the scale infested orange orchards of Los Angeles, or the phylloxerated viueyards of some of the northern counties been fertilised, there is every reason to believe that not a hundredth part of the damage that has been done would have been recorded." While not eudorsiug in full the assertion that the attacks of insects are caused by the exhausted condition of the soil, it must be agreed that the less vigorous a tree becomes the more it suffers from disease and the attacks of insects ; and it may be taken as a caution to Victorian farmers and fruit growers not to depend altogether upon the effects of irrigation for maintaining fertility. Irrigation certainly renders soluble an additional portion of the constituents of plants, and enables their roots to penetrate further and find new scources of supply and therefore improved crops may be obtained for a time ; but sooner or later the supply will be used up, when an approach towards sterility will ensue unless the soil is reiuvigoratcd by the application of suitable manures, thus returning the substance that crops extract from the soil.