TRAGEDY IN THE PHI LUPINES.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 2540, 20 October 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

TRAGEDY IN THE PHI LUPINES.

A frightful tragedy is reported from the Phillipines. In the village of Antique, near Uoilo, the only white men are a priest and a Spanish planter. One day, for no apparent cause, the native inhabitants attacked the priest's house with the intent of putting him to death. The planter, hearing of this, armed himself with a rifle and fifty cartridges and went to his defence. Arriving at the priest's house, he loaded, and began a deadly fire on the crowd. Whether on account of his coolness and skill, or because of the number of besiegers offering a mark that could not be missed, when he had fired off his fifty cartridges fifty persons lay on the ground dead or dyiug. Horror-stricken with this extraordinary slaughter, the people fled, leaving the priest much bruised, but not dangerously I hurt,

FARM, GARDEN, AND ORCHARD NOTES.

Export of Polled A nods Bulls.— During the week ending 11th August some 40 purebred Aberdeen Angus bulls were shipped from Liverpool to Canada. They were selected from herds in the upper districts of Moray andßanff shires. These bulls arc going to a ranche in Canada of over 72,000 acres, to be graded with crossbred cows. I Whitewash for Building .—To make a brilliant stucco whitewash for buildings inside and out, take clean well burned lime, slaked, and : [- lb of whiting, cr burned alum pulverised, 1 lb of loaf sugar, 3 quarts of rice flour, made into a thin and well boiled paste, and 1 lb of the clearest glue, dissolved as cabinetmakers do. This may be put on cold within doors, but hot outside. It will be as brilliant as plaster of Paris and retain the brightness for many years. Tasmaniax Fruit Prospect.—lt is feared that the severe frost which occured in Tasmania on the 16th inst. has injured such of the stone fruits as were in blossom at the time, and which gave promise of an abundant crop. It is believed that the Codlin moth is coming forward early this season, though it is only surmised from chrysalis in confinement having undergone the change, and that is not a condition to be depended on. Effect ok Manuring Apple Trees.— An instance of the effect of manuring apple on apples was shown by Mr W. Roupell, who had the Gladstone apple in its ordinary form, green with red mottling, and again of a bright red colour, from a tree to which a dressing of soot and lime had been applied. At the close of the meeting a committee was appointed to investigate the effect of cold storage on fruit. The experiments and investigations are to be carried out in connection with the Leudenhall Market Cold Storage Company. Co-operative Dairy Farming in CllEsiirßK.—A movement in the direction of co-operative dairy farming has been initiated in Cheshire by Mr Gilbert Murray, agent of Lord Hartington. Believing that a factory established on co-operative principles, aud turning out butter of uniform quality, would secure higher prices than by individual enterprise, Mr Murray is establishing one, to which farmers on the estate will consign milk, and profits wiil be divided after meeting all outgoings. Phenomenal Growth of Fat is a Bullock.—A Perth (Scotland) butcher has keen exhibiting in his shop window a lump of fat of phenomenal size, taken from the carcase of a bullock. The fat weighed exactiy one cwt., along with the kidneys, when taken from the carcase. The animal was a crossbred bullock, fed by Mr Tod, Gorthie Mains. During the last week, several hundreds of persons have visited the shop, some of them eminent butchers from England, and all aver that never in the whole of their experience had they seen anything similar.

Tiik English Cheese Market.—lt is stated in the Grocer that the make of cheese in England is the largest ever known, judged to be 20 per cent over the average. In consequence of the damp cold weather the cheese has not ripened ; as vegetables were cheap and there being an absence of hot weather, lesschee=e was eaten and less has been sold from the makers than usual. Old cheese was selling 20 to 30 per cent, under the high figures of the previous autumn. Afresh supply from New Zealand has just arrived at a time when tho purveyors have usually supplied themselves with stock. Owing to the depression in agriculture, laborers, who are the greatest consumers, cannot afford to pay more than Od per lb for cheese. The recent " bear" action in America, by selling forward at low figures, has rebounded in au absurd " bull " movement, which has resulted iu innumerable bankruptcies and loss of hundreds of thousands to honest, upright firms. A Prokitahle Herd ok Jerseys.— The Jersey breed is now ono of the leading features at. the great agricultural shows in England, its numbers usually exceeding those of any other variety. The late Mr Philip Dauncey, oi Horwood, possessed one of tho finest herds in the country. It used as ti rule to be kept up to 50 cows, which generally yielded in butter alone " a thousand a year." The butter always went to London, and for many years Her Majesty's tablo was supplied with it. I 'arefid measurement had often shown 141b. weekly from one cow; indeed in one instance 1 Gib. was obtained.

The greatest yield was the first week in June, 1867, when the entire herd of 50 cows made each cow and over. The average produce the .same year from the whole herd was within the slightest fraction of 71b. per bead per week, dry or milking. Twenty-two quarts was the highest record from any one cow in one day. Cross-breeding Incident.—A few weeks since one of the cows of our well known fellow citizen, Thomas Wollard, says the Richmond (Mo.) Democrat, gave birth to twin calves, a circumstance not in itself remarkable, but the strange part of the story is that one of the calves is a red roan shorthorn aud the other is a black polled Angus, entirely different breeds. He had hardly got through wonderiug at this freak of nature, when another one of his cows gave birth to twins, aud they were exactly like the first, one a polled Augus aud the other a Shorthorn. The calves are all strong and healthy, and can te seen at his farm at the south limits of the city. There is but one explanation of this strange freak, Running with his cows last year wis a fine, black polled Angus yearling bull, that had been left there by Judge Sam Wollard for safe keeping. There were also with them

two fine Shorthorn yearling bulls. These are the sires of the calves, and Mr Wol-

lard thinks he is just two calves ahead of what the natural product would have been. Foxes in Australia,—As might have been expected, foxes are increasing with extreme rapidity in Australia. Evidently they like the climate, but, unlike farm animals, they are not liable to suffer from the extreme heat of the weather, as they can pass the day underground or in cool places ; they are also able to obtain abundance of food, thanks to the introducer of the rabbits, so that they experience no privations on that account at any time of the year, and were they content with rabbit and such other food as may be obtained in the bush, they might be regarded as a blessing rather than the curse that farmers and other poultry owners are rinding them to be. About Colao they are increasing, it is reported, in a remarkable manner, and unless some stringent measures bo adopted, the nuisance will be as bad as the ever present rabbit pest. Numbers of these creatures are being killed on properties within the shire, and among other, Mr A. Dennis has been a sufferer from depredations from this source. Durins? the last week no fewer than 11 foxes have been run to earth upon his estate, and there are signs of more being about. On tho Upper Yarra they are also numerous, and have committed great havoc iu tho poultry yards. The Biggest Suekp is the World.— Under this heading a correspondent of the Pall Mall Gazette in. Russia has sent an account of an extraordinary race of sheep. This is the Ov'vt I'oli of Marco Polo, which has its habitat on the Alai range in the extreme south-east corner of Russian Turkestan. "The Ovis Poll," we read, ''is a kind of philosopher's stone, for which all the sportsmen of the Himalayes keep searching all their days. It is an animal 12£ hands high, with a head and horns which are the envy and despair of all the hunters of Asia, Magnificent, indeed, are the curved and involuted horns, measuring at least five feet between the tips; but each horn measured from the base along the curves, is G feet loug. This huge sheep lives in the most inaccessible corner of the most mountainous region in all Turkestan, just to the north of the great Pamir plateau, ;

tlic first of the gigantic series of mountains that form the northern bulwark of India. It is only in July and in August that the Alai range can be traversed by Europeans, and in these months it is the habit of the male Oe'n J'o/i to leave his wives, who browse on the undulating plateaux which are found 10,000 feet above the sea, and retire to enjoy bachelor solitude among the snow peaks that tower to the height of 14,000 feet. Testing Sp.kds.—At Sutton's warehouse, a most elaborate process for determining the perovntage of vitality in every parcel of seed tlmt the firm despatches or receives is irono through. A most, complete record is kept of all transactions here, fifty or one hundred seeds of the turnip, irruss, manifold, or flower seed— what not— are subjected to several separate trials. In one ease they are carefully sown in boxes of moistened earth nil round tin- apartment ; and in another they are put between sheets of wet blot-ting-paper, standing on porous bricks, which, again, stand in water—tl:o whole being kept at a temperature of about SO deg. The number of seeds in each case that, sprout daily are removed, and, after a while, the remnant is removed as worthies. It is a curious upshot arrived at, not only that the earth test and the apparatus test differ from each other continually in their results, but that each differs continually from itself in a consecutive series of trials. Tho conclusion here, as every whovo else where lifo is concerned, is that an averago of results is alone trustworthy. Sin trio trials are really inconclusive. Seeds are this year very pood, as might be expected from the exceedingly fine harvesting they have had, Mangold wurzel, in particular, is large-berried, and containing two or three seeds in each capsule, it returns out 180 to 200 per cent, of the number of capsules sown. Here, as in every other department, a surprisingly miuntc record is kept, and every parcel of seed from every grower can thus be traced and attested, through the trial grounds and through the testing-house, not only as a truth of character, but as to soundness and vitality.

Roots versus Grain as Milk PRODUCERS. —During 1 the last five years some careful tests have been made at the Ontario Agricultural College for the purpose of ascertaining the relative valuo of roots and grain for dairy cattle. The precise object was to find a cheaper way of producing in winter milk that should be equal to the average summer quanti. ties, to discovpr how largo a quantity of roots may be given without affecting: the flavour of the butter, and to learn whether the flow of milk and the condition of the cows could be maintained without grain. The plan adopted was to feed the animals one week on each ration previous to exact testing during the second week, and then to change the ration alternating every two weeks. The cows, shorthorns, were milked twice a day and gave daily on roots 201b. and on grain 221b. of milk. The root ration, which co«t O.id per day, consisted of 121b of cut hay, timothy, and clover, 331b of mangolds, 331b of swede turnips, and 151b of white Belgian carrots, all sliced and mixed with the bay. The grain ration costing Is 31d, comprised l'2lb of similar cut hay, 71b of oats, Tlhofpeas, and 71b of b;irley all ground r.nA mixed dry with the hay. The nutritive value of the grain diet was 27 per cent, higher than that of the root diet, but the net result showed tho profit, after allowing for the difference in the quantity of the milk, and the cost of the food, to bo in the proportion of 19 for roots as against 10 only for grains. Professor Brown, who conducted these experiments, says that the dairy world has yet to be taught that the extensive use of grain is not correct economically, that a large quantity of a mixture of roots with hay fodder is both economical and safe for mikh cows ; and that possibly there is better health with roots, though a slightly inferior quality of milk,