Rural.

Clutha Leader, Volume XXI, Issue 1063, 21 December 1894, Page 3

Rural.

♦ : NOTES. The Ashburton district has; suffered; more than any other in New Zealand from the ' oil eggs in one basket 'policy farming, and the local Mail now writes : — The lessons of the wheat and wool markets go to show that it-is not well for our agriculturalists to depend wholly, or evon, pe¥haps, mainly on those articles of production, the indications generally being in the direction that dairy produce-~especially butter and, bacon — may fora good many -years to come be much more safely relied upon to yield remunerative returns. At the recent London dairy show;, a new separator named the Empress attracted much notice on the part of those engaged in the dairy industry. This new separator succeeded in carrying off the silver medal, that being the highest award at the show. The new separator is built in two sizes, one for hand power capable of working up to 90gals per hour. The other is a power machine for factory use, with capacity of 400 gals per hour. Increased capacity is obtained by placing-in the revolving drum a cylinder perforated with 1000 holes, each of which acts as a separator. Boiled potatoes and barley meal make the finest flavored bacon. Pea fed pork is harder than that fed on maize. Milk fed pork^ is white, but hard and dry. The milk should be fed with bran or wheat meal to avoid this hardness cf the lean meat. The flesh of pigs fed on clover pasture through the summer and fattened on mixed oats and peas for four weeks after leaving the pasture will be found excellent in every way, and distinctly streaky, having the fat and lean well intermixed. This is the perfection of the pork, while a mass of fat on a mere streak of lean, hard and dry, is the very worst. In the hands of a farmer nothing answers so well for the destruction of worms in the intestines of stock as oil of turpentine, given in thick linseed tea, mucilage, gruel, or linseed oil. The following preparation is in use :-r-Lin-seed oil, one pint ; oil of turpentine, 2oz ; infusion of quassia, half a pint. Mix and administer before the morning meal.. This dose is suitable for a fullgrown animal Younger animals require less in proportion to their age. The dose may be repeated in a week or ten days. Common salt should be given for a few days in the food, alternating with it a few doses of sulphate of iron. The Austrian Government has adopted a food aid that increases the percentage of nitrogen by eleven in the daily feed for the army horses. Fresh blood from the oxen slaughtered for the Vienna market is mixed with finely crushed barley, and dried by steam at a low temperature. A fine grey powder is the result, and called robur, and the forage is daily dusted with three to five ounces of the preparation. No reduction is made in the rations. Army, racing, and draught horses enjoy the relfsh greedily ) it imparts to them fresh vigor and a shining coat. Experiments are being made to prepare the flour as a meat biscuit, or rather a ' soft- cake.' The difficulty in feeding wheat to horses is the quantity of gluten it contains, which, when masticated and swallowed, is apt to pack the food in the stomach, and thus cause indigestion; which is one of the worst of all. the ailmei.ts horses are subject to. Oats, having 30 per cent of thick husk on the grainj cSo not act in this way, and are, therefore, a safe food. The simple way out of the difficulty is, therefore, to imitate the composition of oats by adding to the coarsely-ground wheat a quantity of cut straw or hay, or even mixing wheat and oats, or by feeding the wheat in the ear, providing it is not bparded. If hay or straw cut finely, or chopped, as it is termed, is used, it should be wet, and a handful of salt added to each feed to prevent fermentation. A letter received in Christen urch last week from Mr Vecht states that in Victoria he is receiving every assistance from the Government in introducing his system of curing pork for export, and he has made such progress that the first shipment of the pork will have been made by this time. The Victorian Government encourages industries of this character by providing cheap freights on the railways, by using its influence with the shipping companies to obtain cool chambers for the shipments (a matter often impossible in New Zealand), and in many other ways. Pigs are plentiful, good and cheap, the best sorts, exactly suited to the Intermarine Supply Company's requirements, being freely supplied at 2|d per Ib. Pork-raising has already become an industry of some magnitude in Victoria, some of the large owners of mallee lands, in particular, finding that tlje roost profitable system, by far, of disposing of their wheat is to turn it into pork. Mr Vecht, however, writes very feelingly respecting the Victorian climate. - '' An interesting scene (says the Scottish Farmer) was recently witnessed in Mr Cowie's harvest field, near Banff. Wielding the scythe in a masterly way, and with a considerable amount of the; strength and vigor associated with ; youth, was a man who in a month wil) have seen the eighty ninth anniversary of his birth, and who in younger days had taken iv active part in many

harvests. Gathering the o<its he cut was a woman of 79 years of age. She performed the work very smartly and well. Binding the sheaves with hands yet strong and steady, and forming them into stooks, was a man cf eightythree years of age, who has now taken a part in seventy successive harvests -;— a record that has certainly been seldom equalled. All three whose combined ages amounted to 250 years, did their work most ably, and wt- re congratulated on . its performance by a number of visitors who had gathered to see so unique ; spectacle.