AGRICULTURAL COLUMN.

Bush Advocate, Volume XI, Issue 866, 2 December 1893, Page 6

AGRICULTURAL COLUMN.

The higeat scientific knowledge the London. " Live Stock Journal " tells us does not prevaafc the possessor occasionally falling into absurd practical mistakes. The late Mr Youatt, whtf was » high authority ou veterinary science, sow. whose books still remain- as a monument of his soieutifio and practical knowledge, commitleS a strange blunder when he was medical adviser to the Zoological Society. On the birth or tv« first giraffe which took place in the Begentf s Park Gardens London, he had the young animal carefully soaped and washed, in place' of allowing it to be cleaned by the mother. The result was that the parent refused to take ths slightest notice of it, and it consequently perished. Mr Youatt himself is the subject of a singular mistake on the part of Sir William Flower, who, in his work on "The Horse," apeaksof the chestnuts which are well-known as existing on both the fore and hind-legs of the horse, and on the fore -legs only of the ass and zebras, under the name of mallenders and saUendera, as, he saye, they are designated in old books. He then accuses even so enlightened a wntei as Yonatt of including them among disease*, ana statea that he prescribesremediea, both external and internal, for the purpose of getting rid or them. It is difficult to see how Sir William. Flower has managed to cenf use the well-known diseases, mallenders and sallenders, with tha chestnuts of the horse. Youatt certainly did nothing of the kind. The chestnuts, as Sir ' William states, are "pel fectly normal structures ; they exist at birth, are equally developed in both sexes and, allowing for individual variations, constant in form, size, and. position;" whereas mallendera and sallenders are equally well-known cutaneous diseases, which do not even occur in the locality where the chestnuts are found. , '

If we grow 50 Imshels of wheat on an acre oi laud, we remove 10U>. of pure phoaphonr' . from that acre of soil . Tha phosphorus will ttf contained in about 501 b. of phosphates of lime. If oats are grown, 30 bushels lvill remove the same quantity. Six tons of potatoes, 3 or 4 tons of oaten bay, 20 tons of turnips or mangels, and 1,400ga1. of milk will each remove 101 b. of phosphorus from the soil. From \ this it is easy to understand bow a soil gradually becomes weaker in phosphorus. Clover hay rapidly robs a soil of it< phosphorus, and it is safe to calculate that in the bones of every eight sheep we ship across the seas, we are making our country 101 b. the poorer in phosphorus. In the one and three-quarter million carcases sent away yearly, there is a. very serious drain indeed, which is not counterbalanced by the pure phosphorus imported for rabbit poisoning. In any case the rabbits for the most part die in their burrows, and so there is no gain to the soil. While we have virgin soil to operate upon, and while our agriculture is still young, we miy not teel tha drain ; bat we may rest assured that the time will come, and that all too soon, when the. fields will show phosphorus hunger, and then fertility will only be restored at great expanse. Wise is the farmer, then, who recognises (hat ■ his soil is bis bank, and if he makes too big an overdraft he will land himself in agricultural bankruptcy.