FARM, GARDEN, AND ORCHARD NOTES.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 2668, 17 August 1889, Page 6 (Supplement)

FARM, GARDEN, AND ORCHARD NOTES.

Tub Wonn ." Hoosthr."—'Tho word rooster is most probably derived originally front tho Litin word rostrum, a beak or sharp protection or spur, and from the ■French roxtre, which means tho same thing. Tho botanical term raslrnte is used to signify a spurred flower, as a violet and others which havo a spur-like projection. Webster's dictionary defines tbo word as meaning tho head of tho roost, but this is hardly so reasonable as tho definition abovo given, viz., a spurred fowl. There aro in fact rostra to hens which havo spurs similar to those of the roosters. All domestic fowls are iu fact roosters, if this term really means that thov roost, but as a general rule the males, which bear spurs, are roosters. Under this signification tho term is a reasonable 0110.

.Scotch Shorthorns. — The Scotch shorthorns appear to be coining to the front with avengeancc in the old country. Not many years ago, when the " Duchess bubble" was in full swing, the Scotch shorthorns were regarded iu Englaud as plebeians. Now the principal Scotch breeders cannot supply the English demand for bulls, while the Scotchmen have moro than held their own of late years at the principal shows in tho kingdom. At the R,oyal Dublin Show, held in April last, tho first and second prize bulls were both, by Scotch sires bred by Mr Oruiekshau.k, of Sittyton, the first prize winner also taking champion honours in tho shorthorn classes. At the same show the Aberdeen Angus cross on shorthorn was unapproachable in the lat stock classcs. The Max With the Mnciv Rake.— Th.it quaint but most remarkable old wiit.or, John Bunyaii, described a misguided character who spent his time raking over a tnuck heap anddost the highest opportunities of advancement. The position may be reversed. The farmer who spends hundreds of dollars in artificial fertilizers and neglects his muck swamp, is neglecting a vast, store of wealth and great opportunities for enrichment. American farmers have been taken to task

for their blind and ruinous course in send ing abroad tho rich inheritance of tho fer-

■ tility of their land to Europe. But now ; this, too, is reversed, and Europeans are sending hither the peat from their swamps, which fertilises the market gardens and sells in America for twice as much as the best straw manure. There is a plain moral in this fact. Tannino SnuiirSKiNS,— To those who wish to tan and colour sheepskins with the wool on,-the following recipe from au American paper may be useful :—Tan in alum dissolved in water ; proportion, one pound of idum to one gallon of water. Then wash wool dean with plain soap. To oolour, use aniline of any shade you desire. Dissolve one pound aniline in two gallons water ; strain beforo using ; tlien float skins in a dye box, wool down. See that they lie flat, and let them remain till colour or shade you desire comes, then take out and run through clear cold water and haug up in a hot room to dry. Eor plain wliito, wash the skins well after tanning: as described above. If not white enough, hang up in a small room and bleach with powdered sulphur, set in a pail in centro of the room burning. Be careful to hnve no escape of the sulphur fumes, and have the room air-tight. .How Animalh Doctor Thkmsbwks. —Animals usually get rid of their parasites by using mud, clay, dust., &a. Those attacked by fever are observed to eat 1 little food, but to drink a fair quantity of ' water, to seek dark airy places, and to ' remain as quiet in them as possible. Cat-i ' and dogs have been observed to oat cer-

tain kinds of grass when ill, and tho herbivorous animals, sueh as sheep and oxen, carefully select particular kinds of herbs, when suffering from indigestion or some similar disease. Animals suffering from rheumatism keep as far as possible in tho sun. When a monkey is wounded in its native forests it stops the flow of blood by covering and pressing leaves

over tho hurt portion. The ants liavo a regular system of medicine and surgery, and dress wounds very carefully with their siilivn Tim warrior anis have even ambulances. Tin! iici.ive. b. cs attend . carefully to tho hurts of fellow workers.' but are quite callous and neglectful to tlu; sickness or wounds of the iuhjdr'uie. A I'F.r.rxvrw. I'aktprr.—On a field at JJ.jati 1 urt, Inverness-shire, (he rye grass, according to the Aberdeen Kree I'ress, is a? thick in the pasture ns it was when it. was when laid down .'l7 years ago. It hi.i I icon twice on t—first at '.'-year-old, and second at 12-year.'jld gi\-i.<>:i—and has been regularly let to the feiiars oi'Bcauly for graziim purposes. Tho soil is naturally fertile, but this shows that rye grass, under certain condition, keep'! the ground for an indefinite length of time. ■Speaking of grasses, it miy bo worth giving the mixture that, with a seventhshift rotation, is adopted by Hubert Lawson, mauugcr for Lord Lovat. It contains +11). rod clover, 21b. white clover, llii. alsyiic, 1 bushel perennial rye grass, and h bushel Italian rye grass. Where the lields are. apt to be overrun with the grass known in the district as Yorkshire "fog"' he finds it to answer 'flic purpose to eo\v down cocksfoot, which, being a stronger rooting grass, Overcomes the interloper, thus illustrating the axiom of the survival of the fittest. "A Nation of Poor Farmkrs."—ln a recent number of Harper's Magazine, Mr J. K. Reeves draws a somewhat gloomy picture of the condition of the American farmer. , Cheap lands and wide areas of virgin soil have been, lie says, a constant temptation to 'superficial cultivation in the United States; and whilo people there were boasting of development, Mr Reeves points out that facts show that they have been a "nation of poor farmers." Upon land comparatively new,, be' explains and aided by.. splendid, machinery, American farmers produce less than half the yield of wheat per acre obtained in England. The average yield in the United States is barely "12i bushels per acre, and the productiveness of the land is diminishing. Mr Reeve states that, the present generation will see the limit of tho territorial expansion of American agriculture, and when this, limit is reached. Americans will have to grow more per acre, or let another nation held to feed then). Hp, therefore, advocates small farms and intensive farming. Already, lie contends, nothing else pays in the Eastern States, where laud values, mid consequently taxes, have increased, 'Hoksk Ehkedini:.—ln his lecture on Horse Breeding, Jas' Wood, of Westchester County, New York, made the following: statement: —" Tho demand for horses is steadily increasing. Europe cannot supply hor own needs. Great Britain annually imports 20,000 from other countries. The immense armies of tho Continent are making an over increasing demand and if, the threatening war cloud bursts tho destruction of horses will bo so great that this demand will bs beyond the possibility of supply. It is freely announced in Europo that America alono can meet these demands. Competent officers from tho German, French and English armies have made extensive examinations in this country as to our equine resources, and have made very full reports to their respective Governments. Even in the time of peace they aro drawing upon us. Tho demands of our home markets aro constantly increasing. In New York City alone 1-1,000 horses die every year, and as many more become lame or othcrwiso disabled and are sent into t.he country, from which they never return." The Kf.l.sky Plum.—The Kelsey Japan plum is obtaining a high character and great popularity in California. It was introduced from Japan, where it bears the name of Botankio ; the whole stock was produced by Mr Kelsey, whose name it boars and who, finding it valuable, is propagating it very extensively, I laving by last season about 300 bearing trees in his orchard, anil which carries heavy crops. The fruit is described as being about (.he size of a Crawford Peach, but of reversed shape, being broad at the bise and narrowing to a curved point. The skin is thin, uneven, covered with a thinnish blossom, becoming of a dull mauve purple when ripe. The flesh is somewhat coarse, greenish yellow, very juicy, sugary, sub acid, with a peculiar but agreeable flivour; it is very excellent when stewed or canncd, and is one of the best for bearing long carriage, and therefore valuable for sending to the Eastern markets. It is said to be the only plum that may be gathered before it is fully matured, and that will ripen to perfection indoors. •It also brings a higher price in the market than any other plum, but that inay be partly owing to its novelty. It does finely in every part of the State where the soil is not too heavy and tnoist, and has already been extensively disseminated. A Rrmedi' for Couch - GRASS. —-A writer in Farm and Home, in a letter on the subject of cleaning land foul with couch-grass, says : —As one actual experience is worth at least a dozen suggestions, I give you my own experience in the matter of fretting rid of two nuisances. About four years ago I purchased a small farm, which, by reason of two impecunious tenants succeeding each other, had been allowed to run seven years before I got it. There was one field that, bad as all tho others were, beat them all for foulness with couch-grass. Tho little that did grow was eaten up with wire-worm. My bailift' suggested that we should try ,to tread them out. I let him liavo his oivn way. In the fall of ISS7 ho sowed winter vetches, and although well manured, I had a wretched crop. As soon as ever the vetches were partly fed off and partly led off, ho sowed with mustard seed whilst the ground was fresh ploughed and moist. The mustard crop was eaten off by sheep, and, as oaten, t.he land was sown again with

mustard, which was also eaten off in time fur winter wheat. The sheep had little or no corn whilst eating off the mustard. The field ploughed up beautifully after the mustard was eaten off. The roots of the mustard seemed to have mellowed the soil. The wheat is now growing beautifully, and is reported to be the best for miles round. To date no sign of wireworm or ooucl). Whether I have got iid of them permanently, time alone can prove.

Wheat -'growing in Russia. —In estimating the resources of the world in respect to the supply of wheat, some interesting particulars regarding the subject are to be gleaned from a report furnished by the .British Consul-General with reference to last year's wheat crop in Southern Russia. Consul Sand with states that the ISSS crojr followed a big yield in 1887, and is now considered to have been the largest ever crown over ■that entire region. Of this enormous crop there was supposed to be one quarter left in the hands of growers when the winter put a stop to transit, whilst the port granaries wore full and every available store occupied before navigation was opened. Mr Sandwith further points out that " neither the use of labor-saving machinery nor the construction of railways has kept pace with cultivation in Southern Russia, and that the region lying between Odessa and Nikolaev, a country of admirable fertility, 12,000 square miles in extent, has not a single line of railway to bisect it, and is untraversed by any macadamised roid." The ordinary rate of labour, about Is per day, rose to about 10s per dav in the harvest time, and miners forsook their occupation lo earn money more pleasantly above ground ; but, after all, many hundreds of acres were said to have been | ' uncut and abandoned to rot in the fields.

Tliesc facts are interesting to wheatgrowers in Australia, as indicating the enormous resources of Russia in .supplying tlio world's markets with wheat, and the vague possibility of there being any scarcity of this commodity for some time to come. It would probably take more than one bad harvest over all the world to make wheat really scarce. Sawdust for Mulching,—A writer in

tho New York Tribune, writing on inaimro for fruit trees arid tho beneficial effects of sawdust, says :—I have nnmially put on a irood covering in earlj' winter of leaven, tan; or sawdust, most of the latter. Anil the results have been moat satisfying. Before'summer this dressing is all brown, and before; the next winter it wems blended '.villi the surfaco mould, excepting where laid on two or three inchos thick, as sometimes under gooseberry Im-dies Mild about ruspberry hills. Oil •strawberry beds we put it on nt. an average thickness of about a quarter of an inch.The sawdust oontaiu3 .no weed seeds in itself, and it seems to choke mosi, young seedlings that may come up from wind-brought sends; or, if any escape, t)u! slightest rub breaks their tender .elongated nocks whilo they are in their infant state. It retuins moisture in parching weather, and, as it decays, it mak<?B that surface coating' of vegetable mould which seems to be the surest security for free and healthy growth next, to the first essentials of soil and moisture. I lmvo learned that this surfacing, which is so easily and cheaply, and in so many ways beneficially, laid oh, answers so far—for all my berry-bearing plants at least, and on my clayey loam much given to surface hardening—all the purpose of expensive manure, and tho difference is of itself a handsome i am of profit. But the saving is not blone'in relief from the cost of unueeded manures, for thorn is as great a saving, perhaps, in the cost of working tho ground. As the surface remains open to the air, even after heavy showers, and as seedling weed* arc mostly choked down in their earliest infancy, thsro is very much loss hoeing necessary, and the hoeing is easier, and ono can walk and kneel on strawberry beds so carpeted, without any adherence of mud, and with little packing of tho surface. Even digpiug or ploughing seems of rcduced importance, and as this is the heaviest and most expensive work of all, it is another source of largo saving. Much of my ground has not been ploughed or spaded for many years, but with annual simple mulch is as fruitful as any; and this in heavy clayey soil. Wherever this ground is bare of mulch it soon packs hard, and plants can be made to grow on it only by the most assiduous hoeing or raking after every 6umtner shower.