CURRENT TOPICS.

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19813, 28 December 1929, Page 15

CURRENT TOPICS.

"PULPY KIDNEY." A Southern farmer informed "Straggler" the other day that the lambing in the southern end of the Island would just about constitute a record. Personally, in a flock of 250 ewes he had tailed 130 per rent., and from what he had heard the lamb crop in the higher country had also been above the average. However, there was the usual "fly in the ointment" —the mortality of the best lambs through pulpy kidney. This trouble had taken a fair toll in his own flock—always of the best lambs—and the regrettable feature was that no progress had as yet been made in the matter of a solution of the problem. It had been suggested by the irresponsible element that is always about that topdressing was a cause. This suggestion was promptly refuted by experiences which showed that the trouble had occurred on farms where top-dressing was unknown and in the same district it was practically unknown where top-dressing had been practised for the past three or four years. In the informant's case his land was heavy, and he had not topdressed. The only preventive to a small extent that he knew of was keeping the ewes and lambs moving, but when it was desired to get as many lambs away to the works as possible, there was a limit to this " stirring-up." Keports of the prevalence of the trouble are fairly numerous in Canterbury. One sheepowner on lightish land informed "Straggler" tliat he had lost 23 lambs this last few weeks —the best of the mob—and in all cases where he had made a post mortem pulpy kidney* was the cause. LOSSES OF SHORN SHEEP. The wintry burst in the early part of the week has caused some serious losses amongst newly-shorn sheep. One flock-master in Mid-Canterbury lost on the Monday afternoon and evening about two thirds of a flock of over 450 hoggets. On this property the fields were very exposed and ths sheep were caught just out of the wool. Other farmers in the locality lost very few, and some none at all. However, shearing is fairly general on the higher country, and it will be something of a miracle if losses have not occurred, as the snow came down a good distance on the hills. The one saving aspect is that the weather has been sufficiently broken during the preceding week or so to interrupt shearing to an extent that would reduce the number of dheep just out of the wool. MARQUIS WHEAT. The Marquis variety of wheat is highly thought of in Canada. Mr C. H. Hewlett, of the Canterbury Seed Company, has ten acres of this variety at present growing on one of the company's farms at Leeston. The wheat was sown late, and though it is looking well at present, it is too soon yet to make any definite pronouncement concerning it. FLUKE CONTROL. With regard to the control of fluke, particularly on properties on which both sheep and cattle are run, and which in addition are infested by rabbits, a Melbourne paper says that attempts to rely solely on drenching with carbon tetrachloride have not .been wholly satisfactory. So long as cattle are running in conjunction with sheep or the properties remain rabbit-infested, it cannot be expected that the maximum amount of success possible would be obtained. In these cases, it is essential, if practicable, that the snail in which the fluke passes part of its life history should be destroyed, and as is well-known now treatment of the water supply with copper sulphate can be relied upon to effect this if it is thoroughly carried out. Where such a procedure is not practicable, it is evidently impossible to bring about the elimination of the fluke where cattle and sheep are run together, unless the risk is taken of treating the cattle as well as the sheep. An authority says that carbon tetrachloride will expel fluke from cattle, but there appear to be so many circumstances in which that drug is dangerous to administer to cattle that until further work is carried out it cannot be recommended as a general j practice. If, in such cases, the loss j from fluke is heavy, the only alterna- j tive would appear to be to run cattle [ only.