GENERAL FARMING NEWS.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1232, 14 September 1911, Page 8

GENERAL FARMING NEWS.

; A Federal pr iclamation, says tho Sydney "Telegraph," exempts all healthy domesticated animals from New Zealand,' except swine, from veterinary examination and quarantine. It has been the practice to omit such precaution:, but previously there was no regulation lo Hint effect, and tho Federal Auditor recently raised the question of whether' an examination fee should not bo imposed on .ill stock imported from tho Dominion. '"Every tirao I nnss through the districts of the foothills of tho Tararua' Ranges," writes our tr-uclling correspondent, "I notice that the farmers arc continually improving their holdings. I do not knew any district whore they nro showing more progress, and few. arc "showing as much progress as the men at tho foot of tho range. They are stumping and plorghing all the time." Cpmmontiig on farming generally, a Fielding farmer says thnt no matter what .branch of tho work one takes nowadays it is a constant warfare. Everything " the farmers grow is subject fo somo blight or pest, and all kinds of stock suffer* from disease of one kind or another. The farmer of to-day, requires to be something of a veterinary surgeon, a good deal of a chemist and he must have a considerable Kriowlsdffe of nil branches of horticulture. I often wonder," says the farmer in question, 'how many'farmers know theiv real position. The bookkeeping of a "ood many consists of their bank pass-book aud a rough book in which they jot down items paid m' and 'paid out.' . As to ,fcny knowledge of whether the farm is Daymg its way or what departments are losing and what are making monev, ruanv. oi them have no idea. Reporting on an experimen'al trial last season to determine tho value of feeding younsr sheep for wool, a Xcw South Wales breeder. Mr. T. M. Prosser, says he fo'l 100 lambs on 20 acres of rape and 150 on natural pastures from July to October. About October 20 both lots were shorn The grass-fed lambs gavo Bib. of vool'no Tape-fed ones Itlb. The- difference! 31b. por sheop, was worth V. 9d., and the return on cultivation of tiiie about ]3= lid. per acre. This was in a "bumper", season; in a dry season the difference would 1» greater. He nho estimated tho difference in value of the sheep off shears at about Is. to Is. Cd. per head.