AGRICULTURAL AFFAIRS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVII, Issue 133, 12 June 1909, Page 12

AGRICULTURAL AFFAIRS.

FOOT-ROT IN COWS. A correspondent writes in the Wyndham Farmer as follows: — ''I read in a recent issue of the Wyndharn Farmer that several district dairymen had a number of their cows troubled < with foot-rot. I may say that n relative of mine, some years ago, had a number of his cowe affected in a similar manner to that indicated in your columns. After applying bdueetone, lime, tar, and carbolic without success, he at length found an efficacious remedy in butter of antimony. This can be prooured cheaply from your local chemist. Mode of application: — Wash affected part with either warm or cold water; and, after drying 'with a cloth, pour a littlo of the antimony on the affected part. _ It is an unfailing remedy." Powdered lime, we understand, observes the journal, is efficacious if applied in the earlier stages of the disease ; but v we have evidence corroborative of our correspondent's testimony as to the value of butter of antimony in severe, long-standing cases. On the subject the Dairyman remarks: — "It may interest some of our readers, who are troubled with foot-rot in cattle, to observo the following treatment, which has proved very beneficial, in fact, almost a certain cure if taken in time: — Place in a raco a trough wide enough in the bottom for a full-grown beast to walk comfortably, and about 15 feet in length, and fill in with a mixture of bluestone and water in the following proportions: — 31bs of 'bluestone to ten gallons of water, and keep addifig the proportions until thero is sufficient liquid to cover the hoof. Each beast should be allowed t«_ remain in the trough from one to two minutes, and put through every day if very bad ; if only scalded, twice a week will be found sufficient." The first shearing-shed in South Africa was j erected by Mr. Abe Bailey on hi 3 farm at Colesberg, Cape Colony. The Cardiff Cheese Factory has obtained the highest average grade for cheeso amongst thirteen Taranalti facfories. A choked cow may be relieved by tying a stick in hnr mouth to hold it opeu foi a while. Her efforts to dislodge it will start the obstruction in the throat. A little soot spread over the 6oil before onion seed is sown will prove beneficial. Tho Ashburton Agricultural and Pastoral Association has decided to give over £50 ' in prizes for ploughing competitions to be hold this season. It does not pay to send dogs after the cows. It has been proved that a cow chased by a dog will yield milk deficient in buttor-fat for a day or two afterwards. Brush out the heels of a horse at night; if dirt is allowed to cake, scratches and greasy heel may .result. Coarse hair on I tho sides of tho legs of a horse indicates spongy bone and predisposition to greasy heel and lymphangitis. According 'to latest figures, there are nearly 3£ million mules in the United States. A Masterton produce merchant informed a Wairarapa Daily Times reporter that an exceptionally large quantity of oats and chaif had been sent from the Wairarapa to Auckland this year. Every animal should have a clean place in which to eat, drink, and breathe. Since it eats aad drinks only part of the time, but breathes continuously, it is important that it has pure air at all times It piys to grind grain for horses hard at work, milch cows in full flow, hogs being fattened, young stock of all kinds, and old animals whose teet^ 'are more or leas dofoctivo. The New South Wales Department of Agrioulturo holds the view that fumigated fruit, oven though covered with dead scale, ' cannot infect other fruits. I A farmer would scarcely realise the idea of selling his corn at haphazard or of letting his eggs go to market in a basket without being counted. Yet he very often sells a beast at a price which is merely guessed at, without knowing whether he has made a good bargain. — Farm and Home. To free a grass lawn of worms an exchange advises : Get some fresh or quicklimo, let it become just airslacked, and then sprinkle it freely all over tho lawn, choosing a mild, moist evening for the purpose. Repeat two or three timeß at intervals of a week. This will nob only drive them away, but also greatly benefit the lawn. "I <un rather surprised^" said a farmer to a Wairarapa Daily Times reporter recently, "that farmers don't grow more peas than they do, and uso them for their btook."^ Peas as a food for pigs wore, ho held, almobt unequalled, wkilo they were .particularly suited to lambs. "Lambs," ho continued enthusiastically, "thrive splondidly on thorn; not only do they grow fat, but they put on meat, the flavour of which it is hard to beat." A representative of tho Marlborough Express was shown a paddock of lucerne, comprising sixteen acres, recently, which is carrying on an average oighteen sheep to the acre, and Ihcro is still an abundance of feed in it. Last summer Mr. W. Gill, of "Thaekwood, x Wukapuaka, built a stack of ensilago under the direction of the Government dairy inspector, Mr. Scobie (reports the Nelson Colonist), for winter feed. The stack, which contains about 150 tons, was oponod last week, tho experiment having proved a complete suocess. The stock take readily to ensilage, which makes capital winter feed. It is understood by the Southland Daily kews that Mr. Jas. Swale, of Centre Bush, has put up a record as regards cost of bagging potatoes. He disnoscd of about a hundred tons to an Invereargill merchant at £3 0.t.c.5., the digging and bagging of which cost him an average of only 7d per bag for the 1200 bags in the consignment. Two ei-Tasmanians on . the farm dug and bagged no less than 42 bags in one day — another record. Speaking to a Wairarapa reporter with rogard to potato-growing, a well-known farmer stated tnat one of the greatest drawbacks to the prodt«fcion of uniform tubers was harsh coil. The good effects of tho frosts on roughly-plougjjed land were well known, but it was unfortunately the fact that many farmers did not avail themselves of its good offices, and allowed the land to set until about a week or so before it was to be put under orop. In reference to the testing of cows for tuberculosis, many farmers are, the Wai rarapa Daily Ktews is informed, very reluctant to submit their cows to tho ordeal. Somo probably through dread that their cows will bo condemned, and others becauso they fear that tho cows will be put off their supply of milk. This latter is •quite a wrong notion. In tho herds j tested about Oarterton last week, the cows Buffered no disturbance at all, and the milk supply was noti affected in any way. Every dairy herd should be periodically tested, so that there should bo a guarantee that the milk which is going- into human consumption comus from thoroughly healthy cows. Mr. Patrick Cudahy, the well-known me*); packer of Milwaukee, has committed himself to tho prediction that provisions — meaning meat in natural and. prepared condition together — will be dearer in the latter part of next summer and the early part of fclio autumn than any living man has over known them to be before. "We are beginning the packers' bummer season," ho says, "with 20,000,0001b less than we had on hand a year ago, and with a prospect for 1,000,000 less hogs for tho summer than last year." Thero was a great increase in tho consumption of pigs' meat last season, and Mr. Cudahy expects it to be arrcator btill this year.