Farm Items.

Bush Advocate, Volume VII, Issue 477, 4 June 1891, Page 3

Farm Items.

♦— | Patagonia is the most recent addition to the ranks of the frozen meat exporting countries — a result «_ course attributable to the employment of British capital. The country is said to ba well adapted to the breeding of tho hardier description ol! English mutton sheep.

In connection with the shipment of butter from Victoria during the season which has just terminated, claims have been made for bonuses amounting to £10,000. Of this sum £2660 will go to one firm, £2520 to another, and £500 to a third. Now regulations will be framod with the object of recognising the claims of dairymen and factories, but not any made by middlemen. ; It has been definitely docided to discontinue tho butter bonuses.

At the late annual Birminghom shorthorn show and sale, of 633 shorthorns forward, &1Q were, sold

realising an average of £30 0s 7d, the highest price being £220. Only five animals j. ached three figures, whioh makes the general average all the more notable. In no other sale of equal or even half the same proportions has the average in any other breed come up to anything like the above figures.

Dairy farmers in this colony will (says the New Zealand Times) be gratified to learn the fact that firms of German merchants are beginning to advertise here for agents willing to. supply them with New Zealand butter. The prices obtained by Mr Cox, the agent of the Middle Islond Dairying Association for the shipment he took Home were ls ld to ls 2d per pound. Surely this should be an incentive to farmers to. prepare and present a good article which they can do, and which will always oommand a market.

The recent severe weather has done serious damage to the French winter crop, and the Government have decided agreed, owing to the loss thus sustained by farmers, to remit them one-half of the year's land tax on the acreage under wheat. M. Meline, formerly Minisster of Agriculture, in proposing the remission in the Chamber, declared that 5,000,000 out of 17,500,000 acres of wheat had been destroyed by the severe winter, and the present Minieter, M. Devillee, agreed in the estimate. The loss to the farmers was put at 80,000,000fr to 100,000,000fr.

It has been urged against geese breeding or keeping that thoy in jure meadow land ; but from ou own experience we have found quit the reverse, the grass having won derfully improved in a field in which a flock has been running all the winter. We have found geese most profitable. They live to a great age, aud their prolificness seems to increase rather than diminish with age. ' Their eggs are very lich, and most useful in the culinary doparttnent ; their feathers are always readily bought by upholsterers ; their bodies will always sell at tho lowest at 6d per lb, and what is more toothsome than a roast goose ?— Fanciers' Gazette.

The Farmers Association of Banks' Peninsula (Canterbury) have obtained from Mr Sawers, Government Dairy, Inspector, estimates for a completely equipped dairy factory. It is proposed to erect one of these factories in each of the larger bays of the peninsula, at a cost of between £600 and £700 each.

Eepoi -ts have been appearing in the different papers lately of a strange disease that has broken out amongst the lambs at Tauranga that is said to be carrying them off at the rate of 80 per cent. The Stock Department has now despatched Mr McOlean, their veterinary surgeon, to enquire into the nature of the disease and find out its cause, so that steps may be taken for its eradication. The. present supposition is that it is caused either through a want of sufficient nutriment in the soil, or tho existence of some poisonous plant.

By the s.s. Euapehu there was shipped to Eio a consignment of purebred Southdown sheep from the flock of Mr S. Garforth, of Spreydon, Canterbury. The consignment comprised two two-tooth rams, one two-tooth ewe, and two four-tooth ewes. The two rams are grandsons of Mr John Dean's well-known imported ram Streeti y. The ewes are by Duke, an imported ram from the Prince of Wales' flock, Sandringham. It is understood that the ultimate designation of these sheep is Buenos Ayres, whither some New Zealand Southdowns were sent some years jago. The South American flock- ' owers evidently mean to leave no stone unturned in their efforts to raise thoir sheep to the New Zealand standard.

The biggest pig on earth that has been actually vouched for, was killed in Now York in the year 1889. This enormous animal was named Columbus, and his live weight was 16921 b, Tho skin was saved and stuffed, and is probably in some museum now. It is said that many Jersey pigs have been cU up in New York weighing from 8001 b to 12001 b. New Jersey is supposed to raise, as the Yankee say, the finest hogs in America, and the pork brings £d per lb more than any other in New York market.

From Bet. s Weekly Messenger of 2nd February, a weekly agricultural journal published in London, we extract the following: — " Australia has begun to send us eggs, which must bo at least six weeks old before thoy are put on the English market. Up till now, however, the quantity has been inconsiderable. From Eussia we had nearly 75,000,000 eggs last year. France and Germany bet ween them sent us over 714,000,000 of eggs; Belgium over 200,000,000 ; we have even 2,000,000 from Portugal ; and we draw similar quantities from Norway and Swedeu, the Channel Islands, Morocco, Malta, Italy, Egypt, and Turkey. It seems that altogether we go abroad for between 1,111,000,000, nnd 1,112,---000,000 eggs, representing in value oyer £3,000,000.

One more for America. The discovery of a vein of ' natural oheeze ' is just reported from the United States, Patrick M;<>(sin_i|

a farmer living in lowa, while digging a well tho other day, struck a vein of 'natural cheese, 3|feet thick, at a depth of 83feet. He has just received an analysis from a chemist, who says it is a cheese of a very high grade. It is of a beautiful golden colour, and will keep any length of time. It is considered one of the most remarkable discoveries ever made in the West. Mr McGlinn is said to have refused an offer of £10,000, made by Scott and Hicks, of St. Louis, Mo., for the digging rights to his property.