RURAL NOTES.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIX, Issue 3166, 8 October 1892, Page 2 (Supplement)

RURAL NOTES.

Ben'KFICIAT, insects, so called because they prey or feed upon tlioseth.it injure fruit trees, have been imported to Sun Francisco f.iom Australia and are being colonised, and their introduction is expooted to prove highly successful. Clover Vok Pics.—The piar is able to thrive on a purely vegetable diet, and the green (irons on which it docs particularly well are * cabbapres, roots of all kinds, clover lucerne, vetches or tares and grass. Considering the large qunntity of pork which enn bo grown from the produce of mi acre of any ono of these, there is no kiud of farm stock which (lives a better ior more profitable return. They do uncommonly well on clover ; and, although tho custom of feeding pigs on it prevails only to a limited degree in England, American pijr-feeders are much moro alive to iho value of tbo practice. In Englaml it is generully the sheep which get the olore'r, and they do very well upon it; they manure tlio land, and are as a rule, profitable stock to keep, but their place is mnre particularly on tho light land. Pisj.i may be kept with special profit on heavy land farms because the clover crops can bo fed to them in tlio yards, wheto they make a l.irsre quantity of valuable immure during summer. If a succession of green crops is provided, there is no such cheap way of making manure. Clovor, vetches, and lucerne are leguminous crops, and therefore, add to Mit: store of nitrogen on the farm, consequently the raore'cxten.led growth of these crops with tho view of increasing the number of pigs on the farm is advisable, for tho greater number of pigs raised the moro fertile will the farm become. Heavy land nev-3r receives too much farmyard raanive, and lisrlit land would areiiernlly bn belter if it received more thuii it alrendy does ; but there is always a place of safety for a surplus, and that is Uie grass land, wiiich usually suffers moat from want.