Farm and Station

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXIII, Issue 11833, 14 January 1933, Page 12

Farm and Station

ELECTRICAL STUNNING. ADVANCE TN SLAUGHTERING. NEED IN NEW ZEALAND. Slaughtermen in England and °n the Continent who have nscd the electrical .stunner in the slaughtering .of - stock are agreed that the results so far are most satisfactory. At tfie present, work in' this respect has been . confined chiefly to swine. The use of electrical stunning instead of mechanical stunning in this branch of the trade is turning out a dressed product more in accordance with the demands of the. meat trade. It, is said that electrical stunning produces in pigs whiter and firmer flesh, while the bleeding out of the carcase is more complete. Owing to the head and brain not being injured. the head becomes of more value. As far as the abattoir costs are eon corned, the electrical stunner is more economical. For the cost of shootinsr one pie; "2(10 pi< T s can he slaughtered hv electricity. Tt also has the advantage that animals need not he nut in a special tram ns is the ease with the mechanical killer. Tn epncrnl about ten seconds of eloefrie current is lono- enough to d+.nvi the animal in ordo’’ to perform painless bleeding during the period oi T>nconsaionsnp°s, Tn this wav. a ver'" humane sL» lighter. which fulfils all renuiroments of animal protection societies. the meat trade and the animal industry, can he carried out. Whether this method of s+unnin" v-m fleeome popribiv Ip New Zealand time ale n e will show. Considering the aafistnetdon tide sy c ' 1r- m is o-i vi 0t in England and the Continent, it will he an excellent move op the port of the bacon companies if Hii’’’ adopt, the elect ro-lethnlor. as it is toelpiieall'- known. Even- von r a '"imW of pio-s ovporlod from Nov* Zealand are condemned in England for blond haemorrhages, caused by mechanical slaughtering. The electrical stunner, if it did nwnv with those losses, would well repay investigation . SOVIET HOPES. REST OX FARM. SAYS TROTSKY EXPERIENCE TS ELIMINATING EARLY MISTAKES. - NEW YORK, December 1. Mr. I .oon Trotzky, exiled leader of the Red Russian Armies, declares, that the Russian masses are building a hotter future with their own hands. Speaking to the American people front Copenhagen, where he is lecturing. Mr. Trotzkv said yesterday that the “Russian masses of to-dav endure' great privations, hut mob passively. With their own hands tliev are creating a hotter future. “They want to create R at nTIV cost. But lev anv eneinv attern'd; to impose its will from the outside on the impatient masses and you will see whether they are passive or not.”

Because he was making his fust attempt to address an audience i n English, some of A 1 r. Trotzkv’s speech was difficult to understand. Pointing out “mislokos” in Russia, ho said these “can and will he corrected.”

“The doopoot, the most objective and. most indisputable criterion of social progress is the growth of the productivity of social labour. The justification of the Russian revolution from this point of view is already gained from experience. “I have no intention of denying or concealing the seeming desire of Soviet economy. The results of in dustrial production arc influenced hv the grenh 'development of agriculture: that has. not yet reached its zenith. Its difficulties have come about bureaucratically rather than technically and economically. “Those mistakes can and will ho corrected. The first attempt was not perfect. . This is a great question which goes far beyond the limits of my talk.” . .

RULE'S FINE RECORD. . WAIKATO SHORTHORN. THIRTY-EIGHT CHAMPIONSHIPS. A Shorthorn bull with a remarkable record as a prizewinner is Pmo Farm Gem IV., owned by Mr. .It D. Duxfield, of Horotiu. Pine Farm Gem TV., which is now .10' Year* old, has won 08 championships, including the premier place at the Royal Show in both the North and South Islands five times. Tic has also been reserve champion at the Royal Show twiceThe hull and his progeny have secured honours at shows no fcAvei than 300 times.. .Pino Farm Gem TV. has a common grand sire, Emblem of Darbalara, with Melba XV- ,°f Rarharlara, a cow which at six. years; gave 29,4321 b. milk and 1316.81 b butter-fat in. 365 days, and, at .Seven years yielded 33,5221 b. mdk v and 16141 b.. butter-fat an .305 days. Melba XV.’s performance was a world’s reoord. Her dam, Melba VII., half-sister of Pine .Farm Gem IV.’s sire, gave 17,3641 h. milk and 1021.51 b. butter fat iii ,305 days. Pine Farm Gem IV. was three times champion and tlirco times reserve champion . for the host of all

(By “RUSTICUS")

breeds at Franklin, and he. defeated Royal Show champions ’ in other breeds. He was also North Island champion, on tiro occasions. His sire was Marlborough, of .Dnrbala r a, and his dam Daisy Gem of Colville. Ho was the progeny of imported stock, 'and was bred diy .Mr. James Parkinson, of Opotiki. . Mr. Drixfiehl bought the animal as a calf.

PARROTS THAT’ KILT; SHEEP

ABLE TO MEW,- GROWL AX’D WHISTLE.

A party of parrots, moi'o dreaded by sheep farmers than any savage dog, has just arrived at. the London Zoo, forwarded by the town council of. Auckland, New Zealand, writes L. R. Brightwell in, the “Daily Mail.” Before Now Zealand became one of the world’s sheep pastures, these parrots lived on fruit and insects. But they quickly acquired such n. taste for mutton—liy hanging about slaughter-houses—that they refused to oat anything else,• showing a special fondness for kidney fat. When there was no “homo killer'’ available, the birds went hunting on their own, small parlies combining to worrv a sheep to death. So much damage has been done by the ko:i parrot that a subsidy is paid for overv third killed, with the result this species may in time join the dodp in oblivion.

Tlie bird bandits now at the Zoo will he weaned from their depraved tastes and revert to a blameless vegetarianism. They are highly intelligent, and their vocal repertoire includes a- mow, a growl, a chuckle and a convincing imitation of a train whistle.

CHILLED MEAT TESTS

CANBERRA, January 4

Promising results have been obtained from laboratory tests of now methods of sensing chilled meat from Australia to England.

This development, which is of considerable importance to Hie Australian meat industry, because South Africa has, in date, enjoyed a monopoly of the chilled meat trade, will be discussed at a conference of all meat interests honvened hv the Min ister for Commerce (Mr. Siowavt). to he held in Melbourne in Jnmiarv 2d.

Among the questions to he discussed hv the conference ere reduction of costs and methods of determining quota, in accordance with the Ottawa policy and with, any further restrictions whb-h rnnv bo decided noon. The aim of the Government is to delegate to the industry itself the created, nos si Lie measure of control of cri-.-on which rnnv he necessary in those respects.

HOME OF TTTE ROMNEY MARSH.

Romney Marsh forms the southeastern portion of the county of Kent, and reaches just over into the neighbouring eounry of Sussex. Roughly, it stretches from Hythe to Rye.

The name of Marsh may he mislead ing, for it has been admirably drained these many centuries by deep dykes. As a large proporiion of the land consists of the famous pastures, (lie general aspect of the Marsh is that of a green plain, broken up by the. dyke, hanks and by the clumps of trees about the scattered villages, hamlets, and homesteads. Such is the distiiot in which, the Romney Marsh breed originated, says an exchange. Many of the pastures, in which the In,mbs are dropped in April, are fenced by the deep dykes, with steep hanks and perhaps serein,y.s of the weald, the rag-.stonos storms, which often occur- at that season, there is the danger of the ewes and lambs, being driven by the drifting snow into the dykes. So a temporary protection of faggot, laid slantwise, on the ground, or of sheep netting along the dyke hanks, with a few thatched hurdles about the field, is provided. And this is all the shelter the sheep and lambs got, except perhaps that from the casual clumps of rushes, and in these Spartan circumstances the true Romney is reared.

But the breeding is fr, no means confined to Romney Marsh itself. It extends over the whole of Kent, and some •neighbouring counties, with a great variety of soils altitude and other circumstances. Romneys are bred equally successfully on the stiff claps of the weald, the rag-stones and loans of Mid-Kent, or the th'»n and flinty soils overlying the chalk in East lined North Kent.

The Marsh pastures are roughly classified into “fatting” and “breed ing” land. The first fattens wethers or wether tegs very rapidly, without artificial food. The breeding land is stocked principally with the breeding owes and tegs. A certain number of bullocks are. also fattened, hut the hulk of the stock consists of sheep. Average land will carry five or six sheep per acre through the summer and about two per acre during tiny wipter, and the host land considerably more.

It is a difficult and.slow process to produce good new pastures in the Marsh, and of no district is the old saying truer, “To break a pasture will

make a- man, hut to make a pasture will break a man.” One very wellknown grazier was wont- to snv that it was easy to produce a good marsh pasture ; all that was ' necessary was to keep ten sheep' per acre on the land until the land would keep them sound, no doubt, hut expensive. Pome of the lands laid down a quar tor of a century ago have been ploughed up again under the pressure for increased food production, and wonderfully good crops, they have produced. Holdings and farms in the Marsh are generally of small to moderate size. Frequently 20 to 50 acres of Trass land is held by a farmer as an adjunct to a hill farm for the purpose of. finishing off his fatting sheep and a few bullocks. The selling value of the land has had its ups and downs.

Romney Marsh has a charm peonliarlv its own, a charm which Kipling has tried to transcribe in “Ruck of Poole’s Hill.” On all bauds are the evidences of centuries of toil and husbandry, vet there is a vast loneliness about the Marsh, with i ( B level sir-etching pastures and plough lands, its rare and solitary homesteads, which seem scarcely to out number the churches.

NO MORE SCRUB BULLS IN SCOTLAND. Since September 30i:h any person in Scotland who owns or has m his possession or custody a hull of the prescribed age (see below) must be in possession of either a. license or a permit in respect of the animal. A license enables an owner to keep (he bull in question for the services of cows. A. permit enables an owner to keen the hull in question during a specified period, c.g., for fattening, hut not for purposes of service. Tt should he noted, however, that hulls horn on or before August 31, U)3l. are exempt from the provisions of the Act, and aeeordincly no license or permit is required in their on so. The. prescribed age lias been <do-fc'o-i ns follows: Bulb- "'horn 'll December Wi niu i-mir wi 1 1 he of ihe rv-osevihod a““ <m vr nTV .q g-| s | ,' n |l>T scene I rear there- - Her. e t. . ri hull pflmd in Dr-eerp--lOg I r-pl be of D-/-V pt-Ceer'died jpvn March .Met. lone TP,lb- Lev., 11l H'T -enp,, r;C .Tip. Trtui-i IT. Mnrr-h \vn-,l Ar n ,- on/l Tiipp in anv -'-e- r wll Lt O f tb/\ nee op Mere’. Uc ♦ Iw. Wlpp-i.il- 1-OT- n r,- . „ LvP eel.-eP \„ r :i io.no tt .i 11 u-T r,r ibo -p-rpßerib-°iet icon T*„ll., l-TTT-.T blrP'O C--T J I.T. .. n.-.'rv It/T« -TT .• ---TT-TVT I .r..- i-T pp,-, OAlIj fpDoTT-inr* ■*-rvr> i* rt o Vrm H n T'OT -1 r n VprOlP. lior. 1021. tvPI ho of tun a o-a o-n September 3Ptb 1032. Application for licenses must be lodged with the Scottish Department of Agriculture on a form obtainable from the Department: — (a) For hulls born in December—not later than December 31st of the next year. (h) For hulls horn in January, February. March, April, May and J mU r—not, later than December 31st of ihe same year. (el For bulls born in .Tnlv, August. September. October and November not later than July 31st ol the nextyear. The Department have published a short “Guide” to the Act which should prove useful to farmers and others concerned in the keeping of hulls. HEX AND BEEF QUALITY. Influence of sex on the quality «nd palatahility of hoof has boon inquired into at lowa Experimental Station. The investigators have found little difference between the steer and heifer carcases in tlie percentage of fat and hone at the start of at the end of flO days of feeding. As the feeding period progressed, however, and the animals became latter the difference was wider. The peiccntag-, of lean to fat became less in hot ll steers tmd heifers, hut the difference increases faster ill the case of the latter.

As regards the quality of meat produced as judged by the prime rib, there appeared to he little- difference between heifers and steel’s. Similar ly there was an improvement in the quality oT roasts from both steers and heifers ns the period progressed.

The variation in the amount and distribution of elastic tissue appeared to he due to individual animals rather than to difference in sex. Eo l ' the purpose of this experiment animals of both sexes were slaughtered at the start and at different times during Idle feeding period. These results relate only to what would ho termed “baby hoof,’’ animals slaughtered at about 7cwt. live weight.

At one time in. quotations for beef prime heifer was always lop price, hut- now it is different as prime ox always heads the market. A change in the taste of consumers is responsible for this, as there is no doubt more superfluous fat, therefore now a,days more waste, in Die prime heifer or cow carcase compared to that of the bullock.)