AGRICULTURAL AFFAIRS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 9, 10 July 1909, Page 12

AGRICULTURAL AFFAIRS.

"The Egyptian cow," declares an expert at Caaro, "is an animal quite difterent from the cow in Europe, being very strong, and hardy." An American newspaper mentions the official test of an Ayrshire last year that° gave over 15,0001b of milk and 7501b of butter, .•and another four-year-old, which gave ower 14,0601b of milk. Owing to the favourable prospects in connection with the dairying industry for next season there is a hardening in the pa-ice of dairy cattle in the Forty Mile Bush District, states the Wairarapa Age. _____ | A year ago there were but three French gardens in England. Now they are to be found all over the country, and many oi them have been strikingly successful. In one case a gross profit of no less than £600 per acre is reported. If cows are neglected they will not .yield anything like the returns they would if properly cared for. In fact, they would thrive much better if they had less food and more warmth. Farming is a good, healthy, wholesome, open-air lite, full of worry and anxiety, but with many advantages to compensate for its troubles. But there must be the liking for it — otherwise the troubles will loom large. — Farm and Home. The Featherston Co-operative Dairy Company's cheese factory has had a record season, the output being over 250 tons of cheese, and it is expected that by the time all the returns are in it will be a record season for prices. A three-year-old heifer exhibited by Mr. James Stoddart at the Ashburton Winter Show was slaughtered on Friday of last week, its dead weight being 10601b. The heifer was considered the primest seen in Ashburton for some time. The turnip crop in the Border country is the pivot on which the whole farming system, both as regards crops and live- stock, turns, and without turnip culture the fertile lands of Glendale and Tweedside would revert to the condition in which the brothers Culley found them a century and a half ago. — Country Life. African boxthorn is recommended as an excellent shelter hedge for poultry runs. In some parts of Victoria the fowls practically live on the red berries. The Commonwealth Minister of Customs is considering representations from the various State Governments recommending that the importation of secondhand sacks, full or empty, from other cou'itiies be piohibited for fear of introducing no.uous weeds and stock diseases. He is only a small farmer (says the Woodviile Examiner) and only milks twelve cows, yet his cheques for milk and pigs totalled £176 14s 9d for the eleven months ended 30th June last. This pans out at exactly £14 14s 7d per cow ! Another pest, the true wire ijorm, has appeared in Tasmania and attacked oats, arresting the growth. Hitherto the worm, which is a long, narrow, rigid grub, and eventually turns into a beetle, does not appear to have attacked oats in Tasmania, although a common trouble in Europe and North America. The breeder who would be successful must have the keenest discrimination .of what is necessary to constitute an anima! of individual merit, or, more properly, he must have firmly fixed in his mind the exact desirable contour of a pig. Then he must have an idea of the kind of the breeding stock required to produce such a pig. One ,joinfc the farmer should remember, and that is, the wool-buyer knows infinitely more about the wool than he does, owing to the fact that the farmer generally sees his and his neighbours' clips but once a year, while the buyer has wool passing through his hands almost every day in the week at certain seasons of the year. It has been decided to erect a cheese factory ab the Douglas Estate, Clydevajfi, says the Mataura Ensign. At a meeting of farmers interested, Mr. Mackrsll, the representative for Messrs. J B. MacEwan and Co., stated that his company was prepared to erect an up-to-day two-vafc cheese factory, fitted with the latest automatic curd agitators, and completed in running order, and with a Government certificate, for the sum of £989. The prospect is viewed with much enthusiasm in the district. Settlers on the Otekaike Government settlement have made a vast difference in their holdings (reports the Timaru Herald), through the improvements which they have put in. A big area of the settlement is under wheat this year, that sown in the autumn now looking particularly w#ll. The fine, open winter has kept the sheep in good condition ; there is plenty of feed for the winter months, and the prospects now ahead of the settlers have never been brighter. It is a mistaken policy to attempt to make young pigs convert a large quantity of coarse and innutritious food into sufficient sustenance to keep the pig growing and in a store state ; the object should rather be to so feed thp pig from its birth in such a way that it becomes fit for slaughter in the quickest possible time, as not only will the cost be less, but the meat will realise a higher price on the market. This system' simply means a little trouble when the pig is young, but, unfortunately, this taking of special pains has not generally descended to the feeding of pigs. The remarkable thing about the big display of butter at the Dunedin Winter Show was (states an exchange) that all the winning exhibits were made from pasteurised cream. That the quality was exceptional is undoubted, as we have the word of the Dairy Commissioner for it that it was the finest disnlay of butter he has seen in Dunedin. 'The principle'of pasteurised cream for butlermaking has certainly come to stay. By its means New Zealand makers will be able to occupy a stronger position than ever on the Homo markets, that is, providing they do not continue to imperil their reputation by water-logging. They tell wonderful stories on the New South Wales north coast as to what butter has done. A man, for example, who worked on the roads for 20s or 30s a week, decided to go in for dairying. He went first as a farm labourer, so as to pick up a knowledge of the business ; then he took up a farm on shares, and now he is earning £40 a month. The huge factory at Byron Bay, said to be one of the largest in the world — the distinction of being actually tho largest is claimed for one somewhere in Xew Zealand — distributes about £50,000 a month to its suppliers. This simple fact is sufficient to demonstrate what the dairy cow means in the scheme of things just now.— Australian Meat Review. '