FACTS AND FIGURES FOR FARMERS.

Feilding Star, Volume VI, Issue 1672, 16 December 1911, Page 2 (Supplement)

FACTS AND FIGURES FOR FARMERS.

A Southland farmer who has just returned from the Old Country, says he noticed New Zealand frozen mutton being retailed in all the principal British towns at from Sd to 9d per lb. Prices for stock were very much 'higher than here. CSattle, for instance, which would fetch £10 in Southland, brought over £20 in Britain, and sheep which would fetch 24s here would easily fetch £2 in the .Old Country. According to the latest English files to hand, a consignment of South Devon cattle has been shipped to Zealand for Mr John Grigg, or Long Beach, Canterbury. The draft consists of a bull and four heifers from Messrs W. and H. Whitley's nerd, and a cow, heifer, arid a two-months. old bull calf selected from Mr John Wood's herd at Bourton, Totnes. The certain way to get good dairy stock is to breed them. A pig will just about maintain his weight on lucerne pasture alone, and will gain little, if any. Both wind and water power lack the reliability and constantcy required in an initial power suitable for farm work. The need for improvement of live stock is always apparent. Wonders have already been achieved, but there is yet much to- be done. It is common experience ■ that it pays to drop every bushel of small grain into the hopper of a fanning mill before sowing it in a field. Dairymen must exercise care in changing from dry winter feeding to succulent grasses. It is always best to make this change gradually. The rape plant is good for all classes of stock. It is particularly popular for sheep, pigs, and cattle. Food is given for two purposes — to make up the loss of the animal machine through constant wear, and for the production of the object of feeding, milk, beef, etc. The average weight per bale of the past clip, as dealt with in Australasian markets, has amounted to 332.11b, as against 335.51b the pres?ious year, 337.71b in 1907-8, and 339.71b in 1906-7.

Since last shearing the rainfall has been above the average, and the present season promises to be a good one. There is an abundance of feed and water almost throughout the State (says a N.S.W. paper).

The Journal of the Board of Agriculture reports, an experiment with electricity in sheep-raising and woolproduction. According to Professor Silas Wentworth, of California, his experiments with electric influence on animal and vegetable life at his experimental faTm proved that electricity will more than double the production of lambs and greatly increase the yield of wool. A flock of 2000 sheep was divided into two lots; half of them were placed under the power wires of an electric power company, while the other half was removed from electric influences. . The lambing under the former averaged a fraction over two lambs to each ewe, in the adjoining field where electric influence was lacking the average was less than one to each ewe. Similar differences were noted in the wool from the sheep in the different fields. The fleeces in the electrically-influ-enced field proved 20 per cent, heavier than those from the other field. Preparations are being made to plough up both fields and sow them with wheat to ascertain what result the electric wires will have on the crop. Between winter and summer there is a period when stock is subject to neglect on farms where field wor/ ** allowed to by bthn msoshrdluetaoin attention. Everybody's business is nobody's business. If a certain class of feeding stuff becomes scarce and dear, the farmer must at once utilise his knowledge and replace the dear food by a combination of cheaper Feeding stuffs, which are selected so as to give in the ratio the same results as the dearer food. An experienced breeder is often inclined to think he can combine the excellence of various breeds in a perfect animal; but he is greatly mistaken if he supposes that early maturity, aptitude for fattening, size, symmetry, great length of wool, and extreme fineness may be combined in one animal. Galton, in his "Ancestral Heredity," declared that 50 per cent, of the characters of the offspring will be like the sire. If this be true, says an American writer, how. important then is it that the sire be tho very best possible. Do you wonder at the flood of poor cows when you consider how woefully indifferent farmers have been as to the quality of the sires they used ? As one man expressed if, "This business of buying a sire has degenerated into study of how to save money now and lose it in the future."