On the Land

New Zealand Tablet, 6 April 1911, Page 646

On the Land

Bananas have been successfully ripened this year in Napier and New Plymouth. Mr. J. R. Scott, secretary of the South Island Dairy Asssociation, has received cable advice from Home that' tie cheese market is at 61s, with a very strong market. Best New Zealand butter is quoted at 107 s for salted, and 112 s for imsalted with the market good for choicest" qualities, but dull and declining for secondaries, which are in heavy supply. Danish, 118 s. Recently the hemp market took a jump at as high as £l/ Jos, and lasted at that for a week, but since then prices have taken a turn for the worse (says the Dominion) Jhe output has fallen off rather heavily. This is due to the low prices causing some of the mills to close down Ihe closing clown is chiefly in the Auckland province and 111 Southland. The Wellington output has not decreased so heavily. Among the blocks of land that will be thrown open by the Government for settlement in Canterbury shortly are— Allanholme, adjoining the Waihao Downs, and Drayton situated at Templeton. The plans for these two blocks are expected to be out any clay now, and both, will probably be in the market by April 25 of this year. The settlement at Waihao Downs is being surveyed now. Its area is 2200 acres, but only 1900 acres of this amount are to be offered at present The land is being cut up into 23 farms,-and a tew small five-acre lots. This block will be ready for selection on June 1.

At last week's sale at Addington there was a big yarding of sheep, for which the demand was weaker than at the previous sale. Prime wethers fetched as high as 1/s (3d, and ewes up to 14s. There was a .full supply of fat lambs, tho bulk of which was of good quality. Some extra good lambs sold as high as 18s 3d, and the average price ranged from 9s to 15s. There was a small supply of tat cattle, for which there was fair competition. Steers ranged from £8 to £ll 15s; heifers, from £6 to £lO, and cows, £0 to £8 lis 6d.

Ripeued cream is more ' claimable ' than sweet cream. J he cnurnabihty of cream may be described as the power of the cream to yield its fat as butter— more churnable the cream the more butter will be obtained in the process of cnurning. The quality of cream, or the percentage of fat it contains, affects the flavour of this commodity to some extent. Cream containing from 40 to 50 per cent, of butter fat is of a pleasant flavour. Thin cream has a milky flavour, whilst very thick cream is to most people quite unpalatable, and too oily in flavour for use in tea.

An indifferent, careless, or bad-tempered milker is a luxury the dairy-farmer cannot very well afford to indulge in, although at the present time, with the limited supply of such labor, he is often compelled to put up with men and boys who are very ill-fitted for the work. The badtempered man very soon makes the quietest cow nervous and difficult to manage, whilst a careless milker, through neglect of proper 'stripping,' is indirectly robbing his employer of the best part of the cow's oroduce.' Those of our readers who were born in Ireland, and had anything to do with dairy-farming, will remember that, generally speaking, the farmer's wife supplemented the work of the maids by stripping the cows, for, long before the Babcock or other tests were heard of, she was well aware, from practical observation, that this was the richest portion of the milk—and the portion that was specially reserved for the breakfast table. Proper attention to this part of the milking will assist materially in improving the quality of the milk and contribute in no small degree to an increase in quantity.

At the annual meeting of the New Zealand SheepBreeders Association held recently m Christchurch, the question of oiling and coloring sheep for show purposes was discussed Mr H. D. Vavasour (Blenheim) spoke strongly against the practice indulged in by many exhibitors of artificially preparing sheep for show purposes by an excesssiye use of oils and coloring. He brought forward a motion to the effect. that A. and P. Societies be approached with a view to the disqualification of any breeder who exhibits sheep that have been artificially treated. The majority of the members present, while expressing themselves as opposed to the excessive use of preparations 0.1 sheep sent forward to shows, pointed out that the climatic conditions of the South Island affected the appearance of the sheep, and it was necessary, in nreparing them for show purposes, to use oils and coloring. It would be absolutely impossible to prohibit the use of some preparations for getting sheep up for shows. Mr. A. Murdoch Southland) remarked that Southland sheep had the same bleached appearance as the sheep from some of the districts further north, and it was at times necessary to apply M m % T- nlg T teri i t J ° the wool previous to showing. Air. I Little, the well known Ngapara breeder, said it would be • impossible to prevent the use of preparations and that if sheep were not so treated they would not prove so attractive to the public. Mr. Vavasour's motion was seconded pro forma, and D being put to the meeting was