AN EXTRAORDINARY FODDER PLANT.

Otago Witness, Issue 2237, 14 January 1897, Page 7

AN EXTRAORDINARY FODDER PLANT.

I There is one happy runholder in Western Australia, Mr (*. J. Brockman, Minilya, who |is apparently able to defy drought. Hia sheep have had no water to apeak of for two ! years, and absolutely none for 15 months, yet he is able to send draughts of thousands of fat stock to market, and they always briDg the very tcp prices, owldj? to the superior quality of the muttou. His run is covered with "milk bush," whioh until late years was considered nßeless. Mr Brockman does not I hesitate to lay that hia mutton is superior to that fed on anything else. In two years and a-half he has only had what he calls " one dash of rain," and that was last June twelve I months, but in October he aent 4000 fat stock to market. The milk-bnsh is still as green and luxuriant as in the best of seasonp, and the sheep fed on it do not seem to need water at all. Mr Brockman reoently lent to the Minister of Agriculture the fleece of a wild four-tooth ram weighing 321b without the points, and yet he •ays the sheep " had never seen water in its life." He says he Is the only man holding a " milk-bush ran," but others have patches of the busb, and their experience confirms thai of Mr Brockman. Mr Martin, of Oossaok station, lost a number oil sheep. They had strayed on to Cape Lambert, where there i« no fresh water, buc five months after they were found, not only alive, but " rolling fat." AMr Paterson had a similar case. It is Dot fiurprfsing co hear that the Government of Western Australia wants to spread the milkbush. The Minister for Agriculture wrote to Mr Brookman for seeds, bat in return received only a carcase of Bplendid mutton. Mr Brockman's explanation was that he could find no seed*, whioh he attributed to the drought tbe plantß not having bloomed for the last two years. It ia curious that the merits of this bush have apparently only just been discovered. We do not know where Minilya is situated, bat as Mr Brookman sends bis fat stock to Perth it is presumably not very far from the capital.

Training Vicious Horses —A new and very simple method of training vicious horses was exhibited at West Philadelphia recently, and the manner in which some of the wildest horses were subdued the Philadelphia Record calls astonishing. The first trial was that of a kicking or "backing" mare, whioh the owner said bad allowed no rider on her back for a. period of at least fire yean. She became tame in about as many minutes, and allowed herself to be ridden about without a feign of her former wildness. The result was accomplished by means of a piece of light) rope, which was passed round the front of the jaw of the mare ju«t above the upper teeth, ciossed in her mouth, thence seonred baok to her neck. It was claimed that no horse will kick and jump when thu» secured, and that a horse after receiving the treatment a few times will abandon his vicious ways for ever. A very simple method was also shown by whioh a kioking horse could be shod. It consisted in connecting the animal's head and tail by means or a rope fastened to the tail and then to the bit, and. drawn tightly enough to inoline the animal's head to one side. This, it is claimed, makes it absolutely impossible for the horse to kick on the side of the rope. At the same- exhibition a horse whioh for many years had to be bound to the ground to be shod suffered the blacksmith to operate upon him without attempting to kick while secured in the manner de« ocribed. Cr-EANiNa Potato Geound. — On killing weeds wholesale L. B. Pieroe contributes the following remarks to the Country Gentleman :—": — " One of my neighbours has a scheme for cleaning potato grounds of weeds which I have never seen praotiied elsewhere. He ploughs about two weeks before planting, and fits the ground very thoroughly after the weeds have sprouted, finishing with the float. He then plants with a planter, and eight or ten days later, before the potatoes have appeared in sight, he goes over it again with a float. His float is the ordinary one, made of three scantlings about 10ft long, upon which be rides. This levels and pulverises the earth and kills all weeds that may have escaped before or started nince planting. The result is that there is scarcely a weed to bo killed by the cultivator. He cultivates with a two-horse cultivator, throwing the earth close ag&intt the plants, and tho r««nlt of this thorough work, even in a wet season, is that not more than a bsvskel of weeds cruld b« jf«.&e:ed upon uo 13-acre fltld. The pJ»!it«r put« tbe potatos (fcwu to eweh a £s«w»h !n the ground that the floating does not aUturb the seed at all, the ground being quite even and regular from the floating previous to planting. The tendency oC the Victorian potato-grower is now to plant shallow."

" For the past two years," said the defendant ia a case in the Wellington Magistrate's Court on Tuesday, "I have only had three hours' sleep a night." The man is employed at tho destructor, at whioh he works from 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. Arriving at his home at Karori about midnight each' night, he rises at 4 o'clock io the morning and works on his farm. Me Wardel) expressed inoredulity at the idea of a man beioa able to stand laoh a strain.