Rural.

Clutha Leader, Volume IX, Issue 494, 30 March 1883, Page 2

Rural.

To keep ss©ds from the depreciations of mice, mix some pieces , of camphor withrtHem. . fipii Elizur Beach reports an extraordiriftry yield pi of ewes on Sun ;River, .Montana. The herd numbers about 800 -head, which includes 160 yearlings. This season's shearing whicli has just been completed, shows an average yield of between 13 and 14 pounds per head. Many o£ the ewes sheared as high as 20 pound each. The yield per head would have Ween several pounds more had it not been that the average was taken from the whole herd, including the 160 yearlings. When it is rememberd that 5 and 6 ponnds of wool to each animal is considered a fair yield, the product of Mr Beach's flock seems most extraordinary. These ewes are of the French Merino breed. Lord Middleton, in the course of his remarks at the recent dinner of the Guildford Agricultural society, said that on his land in Ireland he had erecteed a butter factory, and with such success that he had been enabled to sell his butter in the London market at a remunerative price. He could have extended his operations, but his lordship had found difficulty in procuring a sufficiency of milk and cream. He might say that, at the Royal Agricultural Society's meeting in Dublin, he had obtained a silver medal for the best keeping butter, and a prize for the best butter, in the show. This is another instance of what a little energy can acjomplish when exerted by a practical thorough-going landlotd. Meerschaum Pipes from Potatoes. — A discovery is reported in the Agricultural Gazette of Vienna which opens up a new career to the potato. It seems that the humble tuber can be transformed into a material for the manufacture of meerschaum pipes of the very choicest quality by the simple operation of boiling it for thirty-six hours in a certain chemical solution and squeezing it afterwards in a press till whatever moisture it may contain has been extracted. The residuum is then declared to be a hard block of a delicate creamy- white hue in every respect as suitable to the manufacture of ornamental and artistically executed pipe heads as the finest clay. And not only so, but the potato thus treated is found to be an excellent substitute for ivory in the manufacture of sucn articles as brush and umbrella handles, fans, and chessmen. Horses Eating Sand. — Capt Hayes has remarked in one of his books on the extraordinary craving for sand which horses develop in India, and says that they will eat it in preference to anything else. That this peculiarity is not confined to Indian-bred horses is proved by the fact that nearly all the horses that were examined after death in E#ypt were found to be full of sand. Even those who have died since their return to England have been found thoroughly sand-logged, and there seems to be little doubt that the high rate of mortality amongst the horses in our recent campaign is due to their affections for sand. This seems a foolish relish on the part of the horses ; but after all is it more unnatural than the acquired taste which hankers after rotten fish in the shape of caviare, and flesh in partial decomposition in the shape of venison 1 If horses could speak, they would no doubt also point out that sand is not more unwholesome as a diet than the cheap poisons we drink under the name of wine. — Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News. Mr Ferguson writes as follows on rhubarb and elderberries: — 'Amongst other things that are allowed annually to go to waste, nothing strikes me more forcibly than the quantity of rhubarb that is unused every year. Tons of it all over the country lie and rot in the gardens of both the plebeian and patrician. This ought not to be so. First-class jams and good British champagne can r be. easily and cheaply made of it. Nothing that I know is of much better drinking than good, wholesome, home-made rhubarb wine ; and in the homes of the poorer classes it would be much better and cheaper than. much, of the bad beer that finds its way there. I wonder very much that the wholesale jam manufacturers of our great towns do not use rhubarb for making either rhubarb jam, or for mixing it with other fruits, in preference to some of the unstateable ingredients that go to make up that curious compound sold in the shops as jam. It would be much more wholesome than some things we know of. Elderberries are another plentiful product in many places that are not macte the most of. Like rhubarb they make equally goocj wine and jelly. In fact, for coughs and colds, and for all the purposes that black currant jelly is. used for, that of the elderberry is • to. be preferred.' — Journal of Hortic.ultur,a