FARMS AND FARMERS

Greymouth Evening Star, 19 April 1938, Page 9

FARMS AND FARMERS

ITEMS OF INTEREST

(By

“Rouseabout”)

PLANT FOOD. FARMYARD MANURE.

It is estimated that British farmer: spend at least £4,000,000 annually 01 the purchase of artificial manures writes the agricultural corresponden of “The Times.” This is a formidabli sum. but it is considerably less thai the value of the plant food conlainet in the farmyard manure made eacl year in the country. I In spite of this fact, farmers take much greater care of the plant fooc which they buy in a sack than of tha! produced in their yards and boxes. 1 It is true that the value of farmyard manure does not lie entirely ii I the plant food it contains. The value | of humus to a soil is too well knowr 1 to need emphasis, and farmyarc 1 manure appears to stand alone as u source of. humus. Green manuring if an alternative method of providing humus, and lias been practised tc some extent for a considerable time but it. does not produce such a good return or such a lasting benefit as an application of farmyard manure. It appears that it is straw which is so valuable in persisting, though straw ploughed in by itself lends temporarily to impoverish the soil because the bacteria, which decompose it do not find in it sufficient nitrogen. In dung, preliminary decomposition , of the straw has occurred, so that no impoverishment of the soil is caused. SPECIAL VALUE. It has been claimed for farmyard manure that it has another special value in certain so-called auxines which it is reported to contain; these are believed to be present in animal urine and to be very important in plant growth. At the present time knowledge is not sufficiently advanced for this claim to be regarded as substantiated, but it is by no means impossible that farmyard manure may have some special value. All these points are important, and are added ..justification for the respect which the farmer has always had for farmyard manure, but it is also important to j appreciate that it contains much plant J food. Perhaps the plant food can be bought in a sack, but the more it is wasted in farmyard manure the more sacks must be bought, and artificial manure bills can be unduly heavy. The method of handling farmyard

manure has changed considerably during recent years. It was the common practice to cart the dung from the yards and boxes at convenient times to a heap in a corner of the field to which it was to be applied; but now it is becoming more and more the general practice to cart it direct to small heaps on the lield—in other words, long rather than short dung is being applied. Of course., there is more dung to apply when it is carted in the long state, but'a much heavier dressing is required than with short dung. Just after harvest last year the writer saw a patch of stubble which had caught fire. The fire must have passed over the ground very rapidly, because some of the stubble was barely charred, yet the dung heaps, which had been carted out shortly before, were reduced to neat little mounds of ashes. Our forefathers would have held up their hands in pious horror at such evidence of the paucity of the substance dignified by tiie name of dung.

OYER-S P E C 1 Al. IS AT 10 X. BRITISH STOCK. CRITICISED. In a paper read during Smithfield week to the Farmers’ Club, Mr AV. S. Mansfield raised an important issue in connection with livestock breeding, says the “London Times.” In his criticism of the Aberdeen-Angus breed he made a plea for “the rougher, rangier type of sire” that was formerly .available as against the modern exemplar of the breed that was too refined for mating with the ordinary commercial cattle of the country, which are chiefly tftiiry stock. Sir Merrik Burrell at the time suggested that the pedigree breeder could not so easily produce the animal that Mr Mansfield advocated and that the farmer did not ttfant the rougher progeny but the more finished typeThe point surety is that the more representative type, be it rougher or rangier, must be the aim of the stockbreeder and not a mere reversion to a primitive forpi in the process of evolving the more refined specimen. Many of our leading breeds of stock are today over-refined' and Have their specialised attributes over-exploited. The overbred is as worthless as the underbred, and while many a pedigree type to-day exceeds the fondest dreams of Robert Bakeweil, it does not alter the Sact that new “improvers” are now needed to save much of our pedigree stock for the crude purposes of practical farming. There must be a Imit to specialisation and refinement. What is required to-day is the representative type, that is to say, the'animal which comprises the qualities demanded by the market only in so far as they coincide with attributes of stamina and reproductive capacity under normal conditions of season and climate. The problem is to find these unexploited or representative types. Taking the case of beef cattle, Mr Mansfield singled out the Hereford as a good beast for general purposes. This breed is magnificently bovine in every respect, and' not in the least specialised. The Hereford is (a great aristocrat on its own account and as a sire can leave its stamp on the offspring of a dairy cow as well <as it has on thousands of scrub cattle throughout the world-

POULTRY KEEPING. WHICH BIRDS TO CULL. When applied to a laying flock, culling means the separating from the flock and the disposal of non-layers, together with such birds as are not likely to produce sufficient eggs to pay for their keep and that do not return to their owner adequate reward for the care and attention given, writes Mr C. J. Cussen, chief poultry instructor in the Agricultural Journal. All poultry-keepers should learn all they can, and practise the.art of culling, for unless they do so they are not likely to get the best returns for their labour. It is not a difficult matter to pick out the ver/ 1 poor birds amongst ■the best birds, but to thoroughly master the art of culling and correctly weigh up the various points means long experience, much practice, and keen observation. The poultry organisation would be doing an extra service and one that would be much appreciated, especially by the beginners, if they could arrange for experienced members in the various districts to give practical demonstrations at this time of the year on the subject of culling the laying-flock.

As this, department is anxious to see that poultry-keepers do well and that tlie standard of the Dominion’s flocks is maintained', its instructors would be pleased, where possible, to assist organisations in such work, if they so desire. To the successful poultry-keepers culling may be said to be almost a constant job, for experience has taught them that the most economical way of keeping flocks on a paying basis is to be always on the which and by close observation detect and, as soon as possible, dispose of those birds which have passed the period 01! their usefulness. It is not uncommon tor the keen poultry-keeper to cull up to one-third of his flock each year, and it is this systematic culling that has enabled such People to build up good reputations for keeping high-quality stock. However, in order to practise a regular system 01 culling succedgfully throughout the year a person requires keen observation and much experience. Though many poultry-keepers are not in the position to adopt a regular system of culling throughout the year, it is a good' plan to systematically handle and examine all birds at least once a year. The best time to do this work is just before the birds go into the moult.

It is safe to say that most birds tw’o ye'ars and a-half old or over should be culled as soon as they stop laying. However, if some of the 2J-year-olds are of exceptionally good type, vigour, ami constitution, they should be retained for the breeding-pen us long as they retain their vigour and produce fertile eggs.

As a. rule, those that commence to moult before the first week in Febbruary can be culled, but it should be remembered' that it is not wise to apply this test too strictly to birds that have been mismanaged in any way, or to those that have been moved from other pens recently- Allowance must also be made for the age of the birds, for, generally speaking, eighteen-months-old hens will usually moult a little earlier than older birds. The poorer birds, or non-producers, will usually possess most or some of the following characteristics: Comb, small or shrunken, cold and more-or-less hard, eyes small, sunken, and listless; pelvic bones thick, stiff, with less than tivo fingers’ width apart; vent dry and small and puckered; abdomen shallow, with less than three ringers’ width between the pelvis and breast or keel bones. At times some birds of the heavy breeds may show depth of abdomen, but the texture, with poor producers, will generally be found, on handling, to be coarse, with •a layer of fat beneath the skin. If overfat, Leghorns and other yellowlegged breeds can usually be picked by their yellow legs and beaks at this time of the year. However, allowance must be made for any birds of the yellow-legged heavy varieties, if they have been broody, for the colour will usually return to the beak and legs when a bird 1 is sitting. FLEECE TESTING, MASSEY COLLEGE RESULTS.

The influence of sires and of dams upon tho hairiness of the fleece of their progeny is discussed in a recent report issued by the Fleece-testing Department of Massey College, and it is shown that a much .greater proportion of high-testing progeny are to be secured from high-testing parents. The sheep are classified according to their wool into seven grades, AAA, AA, A, B, C. D. and E, the least hairy being classed AAA and the most hairy E. Three illustrations are used to demonstrate the point. In the first instance a D ram was mated with 12 ewes, five of which were AAA, AA, or A, yet none of the 15 lambs born fell into these classes. In fact, all the fleeces of lambs born were classed at least one or more grades below their mothers.

Another D sire was allotted 39 dams but here the results were less serious. Twenty-eight of these dams fell in the top three classes and 16 of the lambs born were similarly graded. It was interesting to note that in several cases twins varied greatly in their classification; in one case the fleece of one lamb was classed AAA, while the other was classed E, thus ilustrating the. heterogenous nature of the genetic make-up of some sheep. The third ram, classed AAA, was mated with 71 different ewes over a period, 29 of them being- in the first three classes. But, illustrating the value of progeny testing, of the 112 matings there were 57 lambs produced which were up -to the AAA, AA or A standard.