RURAL NOTES.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIX, Issue 3130, 6 August 1892, Page 2 (Supplement)

RURAL NOTES.

Poultry Keeping.—A long letter lias hecn cent to me by Mr 15. Brown, the author of " Poultry Keeping as an Industry for Farmers and Cottagers." On thi question of poultry keeping, I take from it the following extract" ' Poultry don't pay," is a saying that has been used so much until it is generally ac- | cepted as true. I3ut is it so? Leaving all other countries nut of our considerations, let us look for a moment at our own land. What about Devon and Cornwall, the only two counties in Britain which supply their own needs and are able to send large quantities else- | where ? Here farmers and cottagers, realising the importance of poultry keeping, give it a due share of attention, with the result that they are able to send regular supplies of eggs to London and the Midlands, aud also provide for that great army of tourists who visit the southwest of England every year. What about Surrey and Sussex, whence we receive the riuest of our English poultry? It has been calculated that upwards of £70,000 worth of fatted poultry is annually sent to London from the district around Heathfield alone, and one firm some time ago sent in a single year 125,440 chickens, which averaged iu price 3s 10d each. Even this enormous supply does not meet the demand, and

large quantities of lean Irish fowls are imported to be there fatted. What about East Anglia, the district which supplies our finest geese and turkeys ! There farmers find it pays them well to feed off these birds, and they do not complain of the trade not paying. What about Buckinghamshire, where in one small district it is estimated that the cottagers or " duckers," as they are called, earn £40,000 per annum by rearing ducklings? What ahout the many other instances in different parts of the country where poultry keeping has proved a success, but where thought and time and attention are devoted to it. I can name one large dairy farmer in the north of England who keeps upwards of 2,000 head of poultry, and he told me that last year they paid him better than if had had sheep on the land. If we turn to Ireland we find this oue of the bulwarks of rural industrialism, at any rate in some districts. It is not too much to say that during the past few years in many portions of Western Ireland, sad though the condition of the people has been, it would have shown more terrible

depths but for the produce of their fowls small though that produce was. Surely, in face of these instances it can no longer be said that " poultry don't pay." No : they will not pay if neglected, if housed anywhere, if allowed to breed promiscuously, if kept to any age, if no attention is paid to breed, to food, or to the des tails which make up success. But that they will pay under proper conditions, and with right methods of management, seems to me undoubted. —Bristol Times. Experience with Arsenic Sjrays.— A writer in an American horticultural paper says:—l fear it is only a question of time when all growers of apple and pears in this State will have to fight the codlin moth if they wish 1o grow good saleable fruit. Many of us have to do it now. Fortunately we have cheap anil effective materials in Paris green and London purple. The operation of spraying with these forms of arsenic is so very simple and inexpensive, snd at the same time so effectual that no one can afford to neglect it if the codlin moth is in their neighbourhood. Thero is a gre'it diversity of opinion as to which of these two forms is the best, ] each having enthusiastic advocates. The Paris green precipitates much more readily than the London purple, and hence the solution has to be stirred or agitated in some way almost constantly. One pound of PariH green to 200 gallons of water is about the right proportion: Tlift time when to apply is when the apple or pear is just out of bloom before the blossom end has turned down. To make a Bure tiling the spraying should be thoroughly done twice, about ten days or two weeks apart, providing there is no rain to wash the solution from the tree. As London purple does not require such constant agitation as the Paris green and is usually cheaper, and is most generally used in the East, I asked Professor Wickson at the Compton i Institute why it was not more generally used here ? He replied that it seemed to be impossible to get it here of a uniform ■ strength. There was no certainty whether a given quantity, say one pound to 100 i gallons of water, would be too weak to | effectually kill the moth eggs, or whether : the solution would be so strong that the i tree would badly burned. But it seems to me that a unanimity of demand would, in time, bring us a reliable, uniform i artiole, and owing to _ its solubility it . would be much more desirable to use thau F Pitris green. Care should be taken to , make thorough work of the spraying, leaving no fruit untouched by the solution. Whon I had but few trees I put a tea- ' spoonful of Paris green in a pail of water, and with a Lewis pump quickly sprayed my trees. Now that I have several hundred trees I mix my solution in a i caalc, put it on a sled, draw it through the orchard on each side of the tree rows and with the same cheap hand pump do all my J spraying with little cost of time or plant. ' I had no wormy fruit the past season on ' tho°e apple and pear trees that were pro- ' perly sprayed as I have described, while ' many of the trees that did not have the second spraving had wormy fruit.