AGRICULTURAL NOTES.

Press, Volume XLVI, Issue 7246, 28 February 1889, Page 2

AGRICULTURAL NOTES.

[Weekly Press.}

The Argentine Republic has at last entered into competition with America and the British colonies in absorbing the surplus farm labour of Scotland. The Aberdeen free press states that on 2nd December a large party of farm labourers left that city en route for Buenos Ayrea, under a three years engagement at £50 per annum and everything found, and that another party of agricultural labourers engaged on the same terms were to leave on the loth. The men were all under thirty years, and especially robust specimens of their class—just the class of men likely to make their way in Canada or Australia. At the end of their Hhree years engagement they will, should they care to remain in the country, receive special grants o* land on exceedingly easy terms.

The committee of the Ballarat Society (says the Australasian) have brought to a close their crusade against the sparrow. The "season "for the receipt of eggs and heads terminated on Saturday, 12th January, by which date 59,482 eggs and 15,546 heads, making a tqtal of 75,028, had been received and paid for. Mr Thomas Bath, of Ceres, who had the conduct of the competition, which was open for thirtythree days, foresees an imperative necessity for adopting a more rapid system of extermination, or the sparrows will soon eat as much grain and other food as th e colony can grow. As the cost of destroying sparrows in the manner adopted has amounted to rather more than £1 per 1000» it is evident that the system will break down from sheer inability of farmers to bear the cost. On paper 75,000 sparrows appears a great number, but there are extensive districts in which such a lessening would make no seeming difference in the dimensions of the, flocks in the wheat* fields. And yet had they not been dcs" troyed every pair of sparrows m ould have been represented six weeks hence by at least six young ones. The eggs, too, would soon have been hatched, and next spring would have been represented by nearly 30,000 birds, which in turn would b a multiplied by four or five." The sparrow question is tbua approaching a climax in many districts, the most thickly populated and most highly cultivated being the most seriously harassed by these pests.

The fancibrs' GA2ETTB states that! although the value of poultry droppings as a manure has long been acknowledged there is a prejudice against it. Analysis has proved poultry manure to contain many of the efemejits in which the best guano most excels. The proper way to preserve it is either by drying, or keeping in barrels under cover; or by putting a thick layer of fine soil upon a hard bed of earth, and then layer by layer of soil and manure, always leaving the soil upper, most. By this means all the value of the manure is preserved and any unpleasant; odour is effectually prevented. The soil will gradually absorb much of the nature of the dung until the whole becomes a mass of valuable manure, ready for use at any time. This compost or one similar— that is poultry droppings mixed with peat moss—has long been a favourite one with gardeners in the cultivation of pot plants.

Australians who have never visited the old country will baye difficulty in realising How such a large' number of live stock can be kept on such a limited area. English journals are bemoaning the falling-off in the number of live stock in the United Kingdom for 1888 as compared with the numbers of the previous year, and yet, as compared with Australia, the numbers fed appear almost marvellous. For instance, the county of Aberdeen comprises an area of 1,258,510 acres, of which only 613,924 acres are available for cultivation and paeture. Of this latter area 216,568 acres were devoted to the growth cf cereal crops, leaving only . 295,434 . acres available as pasture,, the remainder being devoted to the cultivation of root crops, &c, used both "as human and stock food; and yet this comparatively small area, about 620 square miles—which would be considered a very small run in Western Queensland—supported last year 26,575 horses, 158,177 cattle, and 165,023 pheep — equal to 43 horses, 255 cattle, and 2137 sheep per square mile, independently of supply, ing a large population with potatoes and other vegetables. Imagine a small run of say 20 by 20 miles rearing and. fattening 17,000 horses, 102,000 cattle, and 106,800 sheep, besides producing potatoes, other root crops,. and vegetables for a dense population, and one can form some idea of the capabilities of Queensland in the matter of stock raising with high cultivation and irrigation.—QtTEBNSLANDKR.