AGRICULTURAL AND PASTORAL NEWS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1971, 14 November 1889, Page 7

AGRICULTURAL AND PASTORAL NEWS.

Mr G. H. Davidson, of this city, has perfected a machine for dressing the native flax, or pkormhcm tenax, by means of which the tedious process of bleaching is entirely dispensed with, and the fibre on leaving the machine only requires drying to be ready for immediate use. Some two or three weeks since a member of our staff inspected an. Eclipse dresser, as the machine is called, at the factory of Messrs Anderson and Morrison, the makers, which had been purchased by Mr J. Brown, of Henley, where it is working satisfactorily. The dresser consists of two double drums, on each of which are 12 steel scrapers of specially imported steel. These scrapers are 4in broad and lOin long, and when the machine is in action they come in contact with each other in the centre of the blade. At the back of the drum a planer block is fixed. In this block there is a rubber spring which expauds or compresses according to the size and thickness of the blades of flax passing through the rollers; while the mo3t important feature of the machine (by means of which the labour of two boys is saved) is a patent selF-acting splitter, by raeane of which the blades of flax are divided as they M?e passing through the rollers. The machiue is driven by a 12in uully, with a 3:n face, and can be worked either by steam, water, or ordinary horse power ; the feeding rollers are driven directly from the drum by mean? of an endless chain. A sample of flax prepared by Mr Brown by the Eclipse machine was on view at Messrs Anderson . and Morrison's on the 6th, and was fireatly admired by experts. It is entirely free from gum, colouring matter, or selvage edges ; is very pale in colour, and the fibre dees not present, any appearance of having been subjected to any undue pressure while passing through the machine, which will dress four tons of green flax in a working day of 'eight hours. He adds 1 that all machines are guaranteed. The crops in the Aucklaud . district; are looking wtll and premising excellent returns. For a, wonder tbe farmers are not grumbling, although there are apprehensions that New South Wales will not take this season the quantity of produce which she took last year, and that therefora a market will have to be looked for further afield. The farmers have been considerably flustered by the announcement that owing to the w<xat of shipping facilities there is likely to be a hitch in the butter export. It, eeemo that the space in the cooling chambers of the direct steamers haer been secured ascertain tfartieß far mouths ahead. In Waikato, butter lias in consequent been selling, as low as 6 S (\ per Ib. The farmers in that district Bro turn-; •ing their attention to "$Ke * desirt Jiilifcy of having freezing works erected there. The enterprise Is beyond their own resources, but it is imagined 4has the Nejsoa Bros, might be induced by 8

guarantee of 60,000 Bheep yearly for a term of years to undertake the task. It is considered that there would be no difficulty in finding that quota. The lambing season in the Waikato has been one of the best, if not the best, for years past, so that all round the agriculturists are in good heart. ' The Herald understands that large shipments of Auckland grown apples and pears are to be made to London in the early part of next year. 1 Space has already been engaged by one direct steamer for 3000 cases, arid the fruit will arrive 1 in London at the dearest season of the year. The Herald is also the authority for the state-; ment that at least' a dozen # sailing ships will, be loaded at this port during the next few months for New York and London, some of the vessels taking flax only, and others mixed cargoes of flax and gum. A few days ago a cable message was received from -America for the largest shipment of flax yet ordered in that' manner. At present the market rates and commissions are steadily coming forward each week.

Our Canterbury agricultural correspondent sends us the following comments on the Ashburton Agricultural and Pastoral Association's late exhibition : -The Ashburfcon show on, ; November 1 was the best of the country shows this year, the magnificent array of horsGsr raising it to this proud position. The mem-! bere of the committee roll up well to meetings and tho ' secretary (Mr John Quane) is the j right man in the right place, and keeps the show in his eye all the year round, so that all works smoothly on the eventful day. The sheep were about as numerous as usual, and quite up to previous standard of excellence,but many of them bad been spoiled in appear- j ance by the wind-borne dust of the dry spring.' Mr Max Friedlander was the chief exhibitor of Liucolns, but found a strong antagonist in Borne classes in Mr J. StriDgfellow. Mr John Bouifant occupied a similar position in Laioesters (English), Mr Friedlander again in Hampshire Downs, Messrs Mawson Brothers iri Southdown (very moderate), and Mr Grigg in Shropshire Downs. The Leicesters and HampBhires were grand classes. There was a fine show of fat Bheep and lambs. Cattle were j about aa usual— that is, not up to much. # Pigs were a grand lot, Mr James Rowe taking all but onß firßt prize, with Mr J. G. Restell'a well-bred Berkßhires close up in their classes' The horses, as I have already said, were a grand lot. The Palmerston and Waihemo A. and P. j Association this year offer prizes for a sheep (j shearing competition at their show, The following rules for conducting the competition have baen adopted :— l. Sheep to be numbered and balloted for. 2. If more competitors than can conveniently ba found space for on shearing board at one time, tho class stewards may decide competitors in lots by ballot. 3. Each competitor to shear one crossbred sheep and l one merino sheep. Sheep to be supplied by the association. 4. The judges to give the word for starting when each shearer is on the board. 5. Points: For clean shearing, 10} even shearing, 5 ; time, 10. Points against : For cutting sheep, 10 ;]dauble cuts in wool, 10; breaking fleece, 5. 6. Shearers receiving the full number of points to shear over again for two points. , . I may say (writes the Limestone Jflama correspondent of the Southland News) that the area under crop hereabouts somewhat exceeds that of last year, including potatoes, Turnips will also be extensively Bown. Both Ringway and Gladfield estates will sow from 400 to 500 acres each. On the former estate the drain plough has been at work for conr siderable time, with the result that some hundreds of miles of under drains are now working splendidly. At one time it was thought that the use of this implement would lessen the demand for pick and shovel menj but judging from the fact that I saw gangs of men at work cutting outfalls, I am convinced otherwise. Some of these outfalls on this estate have been opened out to a depth of 7fy at a oost of something like £1 10» per chain, and, to a very great extent, the public are benefited by the work going on, as some of the swampießt roads in the district have been thoroughly drained. The Pukerau correspondent of the Southern Standard writes :— " The farmer is ' daily solicited to invest in artificial manures, varying from £3 10 ato £11 10s per ton j and he ia entitled to some assurance, other than the worthless one of the manufacturer, or even those who bought of him a year or two ago, that the particular manure 'in the market at this moment is really worth tho money; in other words, that it ia genuine. This could only be done by a public analyst being sent round to sample all lots ; and none Bhould be allowed on the market which had not passed his inspection, and received his stamp to show, it. Take guano, for instance. The genuine article ia out of the market ; nevertheless, large quantities of some kind are offered and bought every season. Guano naturally contains as its most fertilising elements salts of ammonia, acid phosphoric and sulphuric, lime, magnesia, potash, and soda. Other ingredients are also found, but they are not of much productive power. Guano sold to the farmer is too often minus many of the prime elements, bufc contains others which could be well sp^red^ and which I will mention further on, Superphosphate, when genuine — which it rarely ia— is second only to pure guano in its stimulating power on plant life. It ia made by treating boneß with diluted aulphuric apidj as in the making of phosphorus. Tho beauty of this manure coußiats in its being bo easily soluble that it becomes immediately active on application, the tiniest rootlets at once absorbing ifc, and the plant life pushing upward spaedily. In the Old Country, bones, as we' know them, are not the only article from which this manure is manufactured. Pne ,ol the Eastern counties, with which the writer used to bo acquainted long, long ago (Suffolk) has, or had, large deposits of earthy, bony matter,at a place called The Crag, on the coast line. These deposits are the remains of animals which probably lived long before Adam, and are nodules or pebbly looking substances, containing from 60 to 70 por cant, of phosphate of lime. They are so torribly hard as to require grinding down before treatod with aul • phuric, and then they answer the caße admirably. Bones owe their chief value to the phosphate of lime which they contain, and though slow are the most lasting in their good effects of all artificial manures. I know nothing of the patent fertiliser now in the market, and brought to my notice by circular for the first time; but one and all of the three I have mentioned are often dosed mostj horribly with chloride of sodium (common salt), sometimes to the extent of SO per cent, and more, sea sand, filings, sawdust, and ashes. Thia rubbißh reduces their effective power fully 50 per cenh, but their price not one atom. As chemfcil analysis alone can fully detect the fraud, the manures .are sold as genuine, and t the farmer, aB usual, is swindled: Surely it isnot unreasonable to ask the protection Qif& Government expert in a< matter fraught with 1 such consequence to a clasa^bearing upon their Bhoplders tbe,bread ajvlbs&tefcof so many wbp are— or who think they are—above tbemratbe ; Bocial pyramid." ...... t ' A writer in the Oamaru Mail thus oommenta on the difference in waking butter and supply*

11 - -- uwran ing 'milk to a dairy factory. Although extremeviews are expressed on both aides of the question, the remarks are not devoid of interest : — "I am informedithatft merohantinOamaru was I Belling 31b of butter for Is. At that figure I will suppose the producer to receive 3d per j lb— that is equal to Id per gallon for his milk, to aay nothing for his labour. Now, aa '500 gallons is about the average production, of milk for one cow, 500 pence, or £2 la 83, would be , her* produce ; and as a cow requires on an average the" production of three acres of land, the position in which some of our butter-jpro-ducers 'stand at present must be patent tqall concerned. ' But this is the gloomy side of the subject. I will turn to the other side, which; is that at the present value of faotory produce : 4d per gallon is the value of milk. Now, 500. gallons of milk at 4d per gallon is equal to £8 6a 8d— (I take the returns for last season). This giveß a difference of £6 53 in favour of factories over small dairies for each cow, and the trouble of delivering milk to, a factory is little compared with making the milk into butter at home. These are the two sides of the question, and with, very little consideration j anyone concerned should; see for themselves } which side to take for their own advantage. If we are to live on the times, we must move with them, or go to the wall." . Mr William Falconer, Endsleigh, writes as follows in the North Otago Times.;—" In a local of your paper of yesterday you take notice of the Ayrshire cow Rosina, and her record of milk and butter. Allow mo to v re mark that the result is only .a very average one. On March 15, 1882, I bought from Mr Thomas Mcc, of Incholme, a red-and-white halfbred shorthern cow. She calved on November 11 of the same year, and here are a.omo of the results : For the first six weeks after calving she yielded 651b of milk per day, and | from nine makings during that time there were made 151b of butter, being an average of 31b of butter per day, one of the - milkings of the five days' trial being spilt. t The yield of milk from that cow during the season was 95Q gallons. She was eight years old at that time, and I kept her until she died of old " age 12 months age" - ' • ' ■" The Melbourne Leader says that the Government travelling dairy has now been taken to all the districts throughout the colony in which any desire was expressed to Bee the 'plant at work. Much valuable instruction has been imparted to dairymen by means of the plant, and in proof of the practical • character of the experiment it may be mentioned that butter pactoriea have been started in all the important farming centres visited by the GovernI meat travelling dairy. Mr Dow states the j plant will be sent to any other part of the colony not yet' Visited if dairymen make application to the department. Bub ia a little j while the travelling dairy is to be removed to j the dairy school about to be established at Fern Tree Gully, and will be permanently stationed there. -^ v "Bruni" writes as follows in a recent Australasian :— " Instances have been given pretty freely, of late to show that Australian merinos yield almost as heavy fleeces as the finest of the imported Vermont sheep. From the character of the Australian wool, it is -. only fair to assume that pound for pound of unwashed wool it will yield a larger proportion of pure wool than will the fleece of any Vermont sheep.: One of the heaviest fleeces that has come under my notice this season was taken from a ram named Victor No. 27, bred by Messrs W.t Gibson and Son, Scone, and purchased at the annual stud jsheep sale .in Melbourne last year by Mr A. Ohirnside, of' Werribee Park. The ram was shown in the sale room on the 7th or Bth September, and this year he was shorn on the 2nd October, when his unwashed fleece weighed 261b. This ia a very heavy fleece, when the quality of the wool yielded by the 1 Scone stud is taken, into consideration." -'• '. The Victorian Government scheme for the! distribution of £250,000 in bonuses to promote; the agricultural, dairy, fruit, and wine indus tries was further considered in the Legislative 1 Assembly on Tuesday (says the Leader of the I 26th ult.). Last Thursday the first item of j £75,000 for allocation amongst growers of grapes, fruits, and general vegetables was ; passed upon a division by the narrow majority ! of three votes. The proposed bonuses of £32,000 to the wine industry were dealt with at Tuesday's sitting. Hon. members declined to discuss this item, and no sooner had the House gone into Committee of Supply than cries resounded from all sides for a division, which was taken at once, and resulted in the item boing rejected by 38 votes to 26. On the other hand the item of £37,000 for fruit canning, drying, dairying, raisin and currant, vegetable oil making, and the manufacture of flax,. hemp, silk, and other products waß passed without opposition. Some discussion, htfwever, took place .upon the sum of £30,000 proposed to be applied in encouraging the export of butter and fruits of the best quality to foreign markets. It was pointed out by Mr O. Young, Mr Trenwitb, and others from the Opposition side of the House that the bonuses would not go into the pockets of- the producers, but were intended merely to benefit the speculative middlemen. Victorians had nothing to gain from cheapening the price of butter to people at the other end of the world. But Government money might be well spent in -perfecting the process for preserving the surplus stock produced 4n summer for winter consumption, wheu the price of butter often rose to famine rates. It was denied that the colony produced more of this article than it could consume, the winter prices being absolutely prohibitive to the poorer classes of the community. The committee, however, was not swayed by these statements, and passed the item without even a division being called for. : An emphatic protest (continues the same paper) was made by Mr J, Harris iv the Legislative Assembly against the proposal submitted by Minister, ef . Agriculture that £10,000 should be set aside for the importation of new varieties of seeds and planto, This sum was to j be expended at tha rate of £2000 por year, but Mr Harris declared Buch an outlay to be wholly unnecessary, aa tho colony already possessed some of the best varieties of fruit trees to be obtained in any part of the world, Moreover, new eeede and trees could bo pro* cured in abundance from private firmß. He described thevota not only as wholly unnecessary, but as a " sham and a delusion." This damnatory statement from an hon. member whom the House regards as an authority upon this sue j"cb, at ones brought Mr Dow to his feet, who displayed Borne warmth, and taunted the hon. member with s caking for ''the seed Bhopa." He mentioned that the American Government expended £5000 annually in the same direction and ridiculed the carping criticism urged against honest efforts made to assist the agriculturist. Tho item was "a prospecting vote for tha farmer," a description whion entirely took the fancy of hon. members, who cheered it, and passed the vote with only a few minutea 1 more discussion, Iv connection with the measurements of oomoof the prize 'cattle at the late Melbourne show, Mr A. J. > M'Oonnel, of Duiundur, favours tha Qaeenslande'r with a few measurements of - well-known-Here-ford- cattle. The oalebratedj. bull Rare Sovereign, belonging to. , Ijord Coventry, girths 9ft, but even he is beateo:by.3itt or 4ia by hie celebrated, sire, Goodboy, Dale

Tredegar, imported by Mr, Reynolds, Tocal, girthed 7ft sin, and his brisket was within din of the ground. The Prince/ belonging to Mr John Nowlan.. girthed 7ft sin ; Messrs Barnes I and Smith's imported bull, Lord Ashford, and 1 Mr Wyndham's imported Trojan, each girthed 7ft 4in and measured sft 6in in length. Horace 3rd (imported), nowatDurundur, in ordinary condition measures 7ft 3in in girth, 7ft 7in in front of flank, is 7ft long, and hia brisket is Only 14in from the ground. .Mr Reynolds' Sir James girthed 7ft 2in. ,, : Messrs Barnes and Smiths- imported Silver. Star,, prize (Jow, one of the mesfc perfect Bpecimeria • of the Hereford breed, girthed 7ft2inbysfV in length. Mr Reynolds' imported cow, Last; Day,, girthed 7ft. Mr Nowkn's Paragon at 2J years also girthed 7ft; Messrs .Barnes and j Smith's, imported Lady Brandon girthed 6ft IQin'by sft in length. Mr Nowlan's Leonora 2nd at 2 years/and 5 months girthed 6ft 10in, length sft 3in. Messrs Barnes and Smith's .Sultana (imported) at 2\ years girthed 6ft.9in. Lady Claire, the mother of the celebrated Lord Wilton, which recently died at Durnun- ■ dur. girthed 6ft 9in and 7ft 7in at flank, length 7ft, brisket 13in from the ground (she waa in ordinary store condition when • measured). Duchess sth, the Bowea Park champion from Durundur, measured 6ft Gin in girth, 7ft in front of hindquarters, 6ft Sin in length, and 14£ in from ground at brisket. Ox ford Lass 2 ad, and the prize female, girthed 6ft 3iu, length sft 9in. These measurements, which are those of stud cattle of acknowledged merit, will be found convenient for purposes of comparison. The rabbits and the rabbit inspectors will have a lively time of it after next session. We (Tuapeka Times) understand that a country representative in this island, who haß devoted a good deal of time lately to the study of the rabbit question, is at present engaged on an elaborate soheme. which only waits the sanction of Parliament, not only designed to annihilate the rabbits but also to dispose of a few' of the other pests injurious to the farmer, In view of such a sweeping measure, r&bbitskina are bound to take a jump, so that rabbiters should take the hint and hold back for the day of big prices, New orders relative to the shoeing of tha United States cavalry horses have been issued, and these, could with advantage bd adopted generally by farmers. The order ia aa follows : — " In preparing the horse's foot for the shoe do not touch with the knife the frog, sole, or I bara. Iv removing surplus growth of that part of tho foot which is the seat of the shoe, use the cutting pincers and rasp and not the knife. The shoeing- knife may ba used, if necesaary, in fitting the toeolip. Opening the heels or making a cut into tha angle of the wail at the heel must not ba allowed. The rasp may be used upon the part of the foot when necessary, and the same applies to the pegs. No cutting with a knife is permitted ; the rasp alone ia n6eessary. Flat-footed horsea should be treated as the necessity of each case may require. In forging the shoe to fit the foot, b9' careful that the .shoe is fitted to and follows the circumference of the foot clear round to . i the heels ; the heels of the shoe should not ba extended, back straight and outside the walls at the heels of the horse's foot, as is frequently done. Oare must tee used that the shoe is not fitted too small, the outside surface of the walls being then rasped down to make the foot short to suit the shoe, as often happens. The hot ahoa must not be applied to the horse'B foot under any circumstance. Make the upper or foot surface of the shoe perfectly flat, bo as to give a level bearing. A shoe with a concave "ground surface should be used."