GENERAL FARMING NEWS.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1217, 28 August 1911, Page 8

GENERAL FARMING NEWS.

Of the' shipment of 10 German owls, sent from llomc in the Ruapehu for tho Hawke's Bay Fruitgrowers' Association, 3!) arrived alive: A number of the birds wont blind in the tropics, but not permanent!;' so. Two fine-looking Clydesdale stallionsbrought out from London through tho New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency Company for Mr. J. Dollar, of Blenheim—arrived by 'tho ■ Euapohu on Friday night, i • • . Experiments carried out in Victoria with potatoes showed conclusively that manures certainly tended to render the crop less liable to blight. .The tat allrOund results we're obtained from the mixture of 2cwt. of superphosphates, lcwt. of Sulphate of ammonia,- and lcwt. sulphate of potash per acre. ,A remarkable performance was put up by shearers at Kutkven, near Longreach, Queensland, recently. The Morriwa Shear-', iiig Company employed 10 shearers, and they put through IXO,OOO sheep in tlvreo weeks and five days, tho actual shearing time being 2H days. On ono day they put through 6000 sheep, but the 'general average was between 5000 and 5700 shesp. Tho average was just over 150 sheep ner man. • • At tho annual meeting of the Queensland PnstoralistivAssociation, the. piesident, Mr. W. W. Hood, uttered a nolo of warning as to probable drought,-and ad-i vised pastoralists not to overstock. Mr. Hood said:—"Wo have had a succession of good seasons, such as I cannot jri.-iiiemfcsr since I first saw Queensland in 18G3, and wo must now look in the near future for lean years: .and, as an old hand, I would warn you to be careful, and so avoid a big smash." ■ • • ■ Tho Tasmanian Chief Inspector of Stock, in a: paper before the I-lobart I branch of the Board of Agriculture on tar and paint on sheepskins, estimated after carefully going into figures that tho loss to producers yearly by using these materials for branding at over .£15,000. Ho strongly, advocated some other method of branding sheep as a means of identifi-' cation. A sweet potato of ths white Rosella variety was dug at Warrea, Queensland, recently, which measured 2ft. 2jin. in length ami 2ft. in girth at the thickest part.lt weighed 231b.