FARMS AND FARMERS

Greymouth Evening Star, 7 May 1940, Page 7

FARMS AND FARMERS

ITEMS OF INTEREST

(By

“Rouseabout”)

MEAT FOR CANADA.

NEW ZEALAND SHIPMENTS. Before the war, the New Zealand Meat Producers’ Board, with the object of widening the export outlets for meat, made shipments to Canada on its own responsibility. New Zealand Jamb was so well received in the sister Dominion that the board has decided to continue shipping some lamb to this destination in order to keep up the connection with this potentially valuable market. •

The board announced that the shipments this season will be much less than those of the last two years, and it has been arranged that a consignment will go forward this month. During the past two years the board hasmade substantial shipments to Canada. Last year it purchased 17,000 carcases of lamb and mutton which were shipped to Montreal and Toronto, and met with a very favourable reception. It is realised by the board that the war will probably have its effect on lamb and mutton sales in Canada, but in view of the potentialities of the Canadian market the board considers that the continuance of even small shipments is most desirable to maintain an excellent opening. On the suggestion of the Meat Board, special provision was made in the meat purchase agreement with the United Kingdom that New Zealand could retain the right to supply a small quantity of meat to its regular trade outside the United Kingdom.

CEREAL DISEASES.' • METHODS' OF TREATMENT. In the efforts td increase the production of cereals there is no more profitable method than the treatment of cereal diseases. Such diseases would take considerable toll of crops were they allowed to develop, but scientific methods have been evolved to combat them, and the loss incurred through disease is now considerably less than it was a few years ago. Cereals are subject to a number of diseases which may cause considerable economic loss unless all possible - preventive measures are taken. On the other hand, remedial measures, i.e.„ measures undertaken after the crop has been sown are generally of no value. As far as it is possible to do so, seed that is relatively free from infection should tee used. it is advisable to treat seed wheat for stinking smut, and wheat scab by means of dry dusting with ceresan or agrosan copper carbonate. For loose smut of oats, covered smut of oats and leaf stripe of oats and for covered smut of barley, dry dusting is also effective. The dust should be applied at the rate of two ounces per bushbel of seed by mixing the seed and dust thoroughly together in some type of machine. The advantage oU ceresan and agrosan is that they assist, rather than- depress, the germination and early growth of the seed. Most merchants with seed-dressing machines curry out the dry dusting of cereals, but the operation can also be done on the farm with a homemiade machine, provided it does the mixing thoroughly. Treatment of seed with formalin for ball smut of wheat and smut of oats gives control, but is likely to cause injury to germination. For loose smut of wheat and loose smut of barley the only effective control is by the hot water treatment. This cannot be carried, out on the farm successfully but requires to be done at a properlyequipped seed station. In view of the fact that hot water treatment is liable to affect germination, it is usual to treat only small quantities of seed wheat. This seed is sown out, and the resulting crop is distributed as certified seed. The hot water treatment is giving promising results for control of stripe disease of barley, although a dry dusting with agrosan or edresan gives a fair degree of control. On areas which have been affected with certain cereal diseases another cereal crop should not follow immediately. After take-all has been present in a crop of -wheat another crop of wheat should not follow. The stubble of wheat crops' in which take-all has been bad should be burnt. Weeds which serve as hosts for thb parasitic fungi or act as alternative host plants should be destroyed.

COBALT. ITS,REMARKABLE QUALITIES. Cobalt is a metal which has come into prominence in the Dominion in recent years for its remarkable mineral qualities in eliminating deficiency diseases in stock. Cobalt is a metal of greyish colour inclining to red, brittle and slightly magnetic. In many respects it closely resembles nickel. It is not found native, but is extracted- from various ores. The name comes 1 from the German kobald, the goblin or demon of the mines. The ore of cobalt was sioj. called by miners on account of the- trouble it gave them, not only from its worthlessness (aS then supposed) but also from its mischievous 1 effects upon their health and upon silver ores in which it occurred, effects due mainly to arsenic and sulphur with which it was combined.

The Dominion’s supplies at present come in the form of sulphate from Canada, via England, where the cobalt is processed into salts, ovides, -etc. The metal occurs in Australia, where it is also processed. Australia has use for a large quantity of the- sulphate as a corrective of the “coastal disease,” a soil deficiency evil similar to the “bush sickness” of New Zealand, and to- others due to the same cause in areas of Great Britain and Europe. The cobalt sulphate arrives here in the form of crystals somewhat purple in colour, packed in casks which hold a hundredweight. At the fertiliser works the crystals are ground into fine powder, and for top-dressing purposes it is mixed with superphosphate in.the proportion of 61bs or 31bs to the ton. Only a “trace” of it is required to correct the deficiency in “sick” areas, and the custom is to use only i 61bs to the ton annually. The mixture ! containing 31bs to the ton is usually ’recommended to farmers who topdress twice a year, \

PRODUCER GAS.

USE IN FARM TRACTION. I . ■ —...—— | Savings of more than 70 per cent, in ; fuel costs have been reported by, New : South Wales farmers: who used pro- ' dp.cer gas driven tractors in their harI vesting operations last season. I On an average yield of 12 bushels an I aerg, it was found that the cost of • tractors operated on charcoal was ljd a bushel, compared with 5d a bushel in the case of tractors using liquid fuel.' * Some authorities who made a close study of the operations, particularly in New South Wales, during the harvest estimated that the saving in operation costs was sufficient to pay for the cost of installation within a year. Producer gas equipment, it is claimed, has passed the experimental stage, and results of last season’s operations show that it may be permanently adopted as a means of. ensuring economical working. It is also claimed for the producer gas-driven tractor that, with proper care, engine wear is less than where other fuels are used. A survey by an official organisation in New South Wjales, where about 100 of, the 13,000 farm tractors in use are producer gas operated, has established that, because of the low power cost an acre, farmers with gas tractors are able to give the workings to their soil necessary to ensure the highest yields. This is the basis of the claim that the cheaper fuel will result in more efficient farming, because with liquid fuel-driven tractors and inclination is to reduce costs by curtailing cultivation, with consequent adverse effects on yields.

MENACE OF MARGARINE. LETTER TO N.Z. DAIRY BOARD. A rather alarming insight into the present position in Britain in regard to the butter market is provided in a letter received by the New Zealand Dairy Board from a London correspondent. An extract from the letter is as follows: —Margarine at 8d per lb. .with vitamin content equal to butter is all the rage here at the moment. Retailers with butter stocks against ration coupons find each week the butter they order only partly sold, and margarine taken instead. I know 'any number of homes, well-to-do, who never take their butter ration. It is all margarine, and I tell you that after the war New Zealand will have a very difficult time getting back her butter business-. It shows how crazy the Dairy Board is in dropping advertising altogether. You should say that New Zealand butler and cheese are being made in greater quantities to export to the Old Country at per cwt. (state the price you are getting) f.o.b. New Zealand, and that New Zealand hopes the British public will remember that the high price asked for it is not going’ into New Zealand farmers’ pockets. Butter here is 1/7 per lb., and if your board does not wake up it will lose most of the market to margarine. At a ward conference of the New Zealand Dairy Board in Morrinsville last week, the chairman of the board, Mr W. E. Hale, said that it was not the Dairy Board that had stopped advertising. The Marketing Department had done so. The board had writetn to Mr Nash urging him that advertising be resumed. The first step to combat the position, considered Mr Hale, should be taken at once and should consist of judicious publicity in London.

SAVING ENSILAGE. METHODS IN ARGENTINA. Information in regard to the conservation of ensilage is contained in a letter from the Argentine. He had seen the conservation of ensilage in many countries, said the writer, but he thought that Argentine farmers seemed to have solved the question of economical ensilage conservation better than any other farmers.. They usually employed two methods, i.e., stacks or long trenches. The usual procedure to offset cartage arid handling of the freshly cut material intended for ensilage making, which is usually lucerne in South America, is to select sites for stacks in different positions in the paddocks and cut all available lucerne all round the stack site. They invariably built two stacks at the same time on each site, working alternate days or half days on each stack so as to allow the freshly stacked green lucerne to; settle down and to prevent the stacked material from slipping. On the big ranches onlymedium height stacks are built on foundations where the earth has been excavated to a depth of about two feet. ’ When the settlement of the stack is taking place, a portion of the excavated earth is taken and stacked on top to assist settlement by the additional weight of the earth, and' when the stack has completed its settlement, the sides are earthed up to the eaves and the stack is completely covered up with earth, leaving at each corner apertures for drainage and moisture to escape from the green ensilage material. Many ranches adopt the same principle, but use a long trench about 10 to 12 feet wide and up to 150 feet in length and about two feet deep sloping at each end toi permit of the wagon or sweeps carrying the freshly cut lucerne to be carted right over the top of the trench stack, and when finished, covering the trench material with clay. Ensilage produced under the South American method lasts indefinitely as long as the outside covering of earth.' is- renewed regularly to prevent the contents from coming into contact with the outer atmosphere, and represents a wonderful reserve of fodder produced at a minimum of cost. AUSTRALIAN BUTTER CANBERRA, April 23. Butter production in Australia for the eight months ended February 29 amounted to 3,038,986 cwt., compared with 2,667,442 cwt. in the correspondI ing period of last year. Exports during the same period were 1,838,39'0cwt land 1,383,922 cwt., respectively. I Because of the German occupation l of Denmark, and the interruption of butter exports to Britain, the British Government is likely shortly to ask the Commonwealth substantially to expand war-time exports to Britain.