SALT FOR STOCK.

Evening Post, Volume XCIII, Issue 101, 28 April 1917, Page 10

SALT FOR STOCK.

As winter approaches it is the desire of all who take a pride and an interest in their animals to see the stook in good oonij\onriEays a w"tel- in the Timaru Herald). If stock faces the winter in fair order there need be no fear that trouble will ensue when a rough time comes, as it nearly always does at some time during the winter months. ■ Any little tips that have for their object the betterment of the stock at this season should be welcome, and one. is to provide sheep, cattle, and horses with salt. We humans know how salt helps to keep tho system in order, and the same applies to stock. One only needs to keep salt away from stock'for a short time and then to renew the supply to find out how keen all 1 stock is to procure ttie salt again: - Animals that eat nothing but grass and other green stufi require salt the most, and they will go a long way to get it. Milking cows, for instance, keep their condition bettor if they are allowed a free run at a salt lick. Salt is a great aid to digestion, and animals that have a supply make the best use of the feed that is provided for them. In placing the salt about the paddocks it is a good plan to' place a supply where there may happen to bo a patch of Californian thistle.- The salt itself will tend to kill the plants with which it oomes in contact, and the tramping of the animals will do a great deal towards settling the weed for the time being. ' Lumps ef rook salt should be placed in the feeders of the horses and in "the cowsheds or other places whore the cattle can get at it. It may also be placed in that form in the paddocks for tho sheep. Another method is to use tho coarse agricultural salt, placing it in boxes so that no water can get to it. Whore lambs are pastured some turpentine may be added to the salt. This will act as a preventive of 3omo of the diseases that sometimes attack young stock, particularly lambs. The presence' of tho" turpentine will in no way render the salt unpalatable. On tho contrary sheep seem to relish tho turps after a time. One' will always find that animals that 'have access to salt are more contented than when they are denied this ■ luxury. It is needless to aay that a ooutented animal always fattens more readily than one that is not satisfied with tho provision mado for it.

The Boara of Agiculture and Fisheries of England hae passed a regulation respecting the planting of potatoes affected with wart disease. The oxpreesion wart disease means black ecab, cauliflower disease, potato canker, or the Synchytrium endobiotioixm, commonly known as wart disease. Any person who shall plant potatoes, pr cauee or permit them to be planted in any field ot garden, which in the previous year was affeotsd with wart disease, shall be liable_ on conviction to a penalty not exceeding £10. unless he can prove that he did not know that the potatoes were affected with wart disease. ' -.

Tha-average yield of potatoes in England and Wales in 1916 is estimated at 5.85 tons per acre, or just one-third of a ten below the yield of 1915 and the tenyears' avorage; with a somewhat reduced acreage, the total production of two and a half million tons is about 350.000 tons less than last year, but only 180,000 tons below tho average.

The latest 'figures chow that 1,139,000,000 lb of, mutton and lamb are annually consumed in tho United Kingdom. This is more than the amount consumed by the three next 'mutton-eating countries combined. The United States has more than double the population of the United Kingdom, and comes second in nonsumotion of mutton, the total being 602,000,000 ]b. France is third with an annual consumption of 353,000,0001b.