FARM, GARDEN, AND ORCHARD NOTES.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 2549, 10 November 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

FARM, GARDEN, AND ORCHARD NOTES.

Insect Pests.—lt appears that insects noxious lo garden produce have increased to a lnrge extent in tho northt.Tii counties of New York, where they have wrought such fearful havoc this y-ar that small fruits will be almost a failure ; gardeners and fanners are appealing to the public to protect; moles, field mice, and all insectivorous birds except the lOnglish sparrow, with the view of reducing the number of the insect pests. The Staxuakd Ait-les.—The following ari! the "Standard Apples for Britain" as chosen by the Garden :—Alfriston, Besspool (new), Blenheim Orange, Bramloy's Claygate Peariimin, Cox's Orange Pippin, Dutch Miguoune, Flanders Pippin, L-uie's Prince' Albert. Mere de Mennge, Northern Greening, Keiuetto grise, Kibston Pippin, Stone's, Stunner Pippin, Wellington, Winter Queening; lists are also given of early apples fine flowered apples, little .-ippl«s, cider apples and brightly-coloured apples. Potato-Pr.ANTixo.—A. writer in the Mark Lane Express says—l see it stated that the result of some pnlnto-plantiiig experiments carried out at the Michigan Agricultural College, was decided in favour of planting whole tubers. This is entirely in accordance with my own experience. The tubers should be rather .small, and should be selected at the time the crop is dug, and allowed to lie on tho ground exposed to all weathers until quite green. From such tubers strong green shoots will appear in the spring. Only a small portion of the starchy contents of the seed tuber is assimilated by the young plant, which starts an indedendent existence as soon us thetrun leaves appear above ground, consequently the seed tuber is often found, when the crop is dug , , almost as when planted, when not eaten by sings or the larvre of insects. Esparto Grass.—lt is gratifying to learn that at length the celebrated, useful and profitable Esparto has been raised in the colony, where it cannot fail to thrive in all the moderate and warmer parts, as it will grow in any kind of soil, from the sand of the sea-shore to the poorest of clayey, calcareous, or gypseous soil in the hot northern districts. It is indigenous not only to Spain hut also to Portugal, Greece and North Africa, ascending the Sierra Nevada to 4000 feet, so it is, doubtless, best adapted to the warmer parts of the colony. It is a plant that every farmer ought to become possessed of, if only for the purpose of occupying waste or otherwise useless portions of land, or it might be planted alongside the feuces of grain fields, provided it is found to be ready for cutting by the end of harvest, before cattle can be turned in. When grown on land entirely devoted to it, the yield has been found to be as much as ten tons per acre, and worth £4 or £5 the ton. It may be expected that, as the Government Botanist remarks in his Select Plants for Industrial Culture, the value of some Australian grasses may become commercially established, and it might he advisable for the superintendent of the Macedon Nursery to make experiments with some of the more likely kinds, Dairying axd Pius.—A writer in the Australasian says :—" Daiiying and the keeping of pigs are branches of farming industry which assist one another, and whether tho old system of making butter or cheese on the farm or the modern factory be adopted, the pig must occupy an important position. In adopting the modern system of dairying-, I should rather sec the pigs on the farms than at the factories. In New South Wales, the system of keeping the pigs at. the factory as a branch of the co ope ative busiuess is general, and I notice that in the ease of the last factory established in the Iliawarra district special care has been taken to place the piggeries far enough away from the butter-making establishment. A now apparatus worked by steam has been adopted to force the skim milk through a pipe for a distance of a quarter of a mile to the piggeries, a fact which shows that the nuisance of a piggery near a factory has been realised. On other grounds, however, I think it would be better to keep the pigs on the farm. The cost of carrying the skim milk home from the factory instead of empty cans would be inconsiderable, and the pigs would then get the lid vantage of other food which would otherwise be wasted, The pigs at these factories grow anil are fattened entirely upon the skim-milk aud buttermilk, and the bacon curers do not complain, but no doubt the Inacon would be better if the pigs were fed on the farms."

The Fight With the Rabbits: An Uneven Contest.—A correspondent of the South Australian Chronicle, travelling in tho south-east, relates the following facts:—Three sheep runs that carried about 16,000 sheep each a few years ago have been entirely abandoned through the rabbits having nibbled up all the roots of the grass and converted the runs into deserts. These runs were fairly grassed prior to the advent of the rabbits ; and now they resemble " black bottoms," without any vegetation whatever ; for by peeling; off their bark the conies kill the trees along with tho grass. Mr John Gall, of Gantara, in tho Coorong district, at his own expense erected a fence of wire netting 30 miles along to keep back the rabbits ; but wombats, which are numerous there, made holes in the netting faster than they could be repaired, and the rabbits burrowed beneath the wire, and even climbed over it, rendering a very expensive fence useless. Mr Gall, determining, if possible, not to bo beaten, then organised large parties of trappers at his own expense, and although these parties for a considerable period slew about 1000 per diem, the rabbits continued to increase so rapidly that after some months of slaughter there was no apparent diminution in their numbers, and Mr Gall, seeing that individual exertion would be useless, threw up the sponge. Many other graziers sulfur as much as he does. The Burning of Weeds : " A Shameful Waste."—Mr R. W. E. Maclvor, formerly of Melbourne, has an article in

the Chemical News on the subject of the exhaustion of soil in Australia from the

loss of nitrogen, pointing , out its causes, one of tbem being the practice of burning the straw instead of returning it to the soil after it has done its work as litter for cattle and horses. Commenting on the article, Mr A. Mattieu Williams, in Science Gossip, says: —"I refer particularly to this, as such wastefulness is not peculiar to Australia. Ignorant gardeners and ignorant farmers burn the weeds they remove from the soil, and in doing , so cast all the ammoaia they contain into the air, and then purchase guano imported from the other side of the world to replace the loss. If tho« weeds were properly stacked and sufficietly rotted to destroy the fertility of their seeds they would, when returned to the soil, constitute the best of all possible manured, because 'hey return to the soil just what they have taken from it. In ordinary gardens the nrop of weeds far exceeds in exhaustive energy the sum total of all the other crops. In flower gardens this eicess may amount to ten or a hundredfold, and yet many gardeners are deliberately guilty of the heuious offence of carting away the weeds bodily, -which is still worse than burning them, as in the latter case the ash, with its mineral salts, may be returned. It is not always ignorance that induces this wasteful proceeding. I have noted the doings of more than one gardener who bas a small nursery of his own, and who also attends to the gardens of villa residents in the neighbourhood. I found that most of these studiously throw away the weeds from the gardens of their employers and religiously save their own. They commonly make a profit on the stable manure which they purchase for the purpose of compensating the unreplaced exhaustion of the outcast weeds. In some cases, of

course, the employer, not the gardener, is the culprit, the latter merely obeying orders, or the garden in question may bo a little baokyard, all too clooo to the house to allow space for a weed head, In every

case the waste is shameful, and only mitigated by the fact that somebody else mny appropriate the castaway weed's and use them properly, and, in tho wise of burning, that some of the ammonia may be washed from tho iiir by raiu to improve the crops of more deserving agriculturists.,'

Ensilage -without Silos.

Mr Kiln-in Che.ssl.ire, F.R.C.S., writing from 58, N«w_ Hall-stroet, Birmingham, i"iy« that, having- received from a retired .Shropshire farmnr an account of the rnodo adopted by some farmers in that county of making ensilage, he decided, to the astonishment of iminy of his agricultural friends in Worcestershire, to cut about 25 acres and convert a portion of it into ou.-ilaifc. The crass having been cut and the weather continuing unpropitious for haymaking, it was curried in the green state and made into a rick, and while this was being done suit was scattered over it, and it was well trodden down. On the following day the rick was out all round with a hay knife about a foot from the circumference, beginning at the top and extending to the bottom, the silage out off being put on tho top of the rick and again trodden down. Nothing, of course, could be more simple than this process; no haymaking or tedding machine; simply cut your gniss, rick it, tread it, iind salt it, put no stubble, but put it on land that is usually dry, and when it, has been topped up place some wires over it, from the enda of winch on either side weights should be suspended ; after a month or so the rick should be thatched and covered in the usual way. The rick having been secured, what position is the farmer in? Why, he has a rick which contains all the nutritive qualities of ordinary grass, with its milU-producing properties also, I be man who cuts his grass and exposes it to the sun and wind for eight or ten days has a rick, it is true, but a rick of what? A rick composed of fibres, of threads in the form of hay, which is almost entirely devoid of nutriment, and the utmost that can be said of it is that it is a filler-up," while in the other case he has a rick which contains all the succulent and nutritive qualities of grass, clover, &c, and ho keeps it for fodder for his animals during the winter. Tts feeding properties are quite equal to those of the hay, grains, and meal given in combination, while its milk-producing properties are even superior, and this valuable crop of mowing gra.'R, oF which there are come Iα millions of acres in the United Kingdom, may in this way be secured during the most inclement season and with all its nourishing qualities in it. What an inestimable.boon would this be to Great Britain, which, it is generally supposed, whether rightly or wrongly, is fast losing its food producing powers. If ensilage were made wherever hay is now produced, double tho amount of stock might be reared and fed in the United Kingdom, and talcing the sheep, lambs, cattle, horses, &0., at 50 millions, it may be imagined wh:it an immense source of wealth to this country would be the addition of 50 millions more of such unitnnls, and all fed on the produce of the same amount of laud which has hitherto been required to feed half the number