NOTES AND COMMENTS

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXII, Issue LXXII, 25 May 1917, Page 2

NOTES AND COMMENTS

Are farmers pessimists? asks an exchange. Well, considering their struggle with the elements and shortage of ' labor, they would be super-men it they kept on smiling. As nearly as possible, the bacon pig should fill a parallelogram, as such a shape will involve less waste than any other. Hence it should be the object of all pig-breeders not so much to breed pure races of swine as to obtain ! this particular conformation. The Ayrshire breed is sharing somewhat in the enthusiasm which prevails in dairy cattle breeding circles when outstanding animais are in evidence (says a Chicago paper)- At the Mational Dairy Siaow at Springfield, Mass., the two-year-old bull imp. Hobsland • Piecemeal was sold by J. H. Black, I Lachute, Que., to Huge J. Chisholm, |, for his Strathglass herd at Por,fc Chester. N.Y., for £800. This handsome young bull was sired by Mr Chisholm's famous champion bull Hobsland Perfect Piece. He stood second in the judging, being headed by Strathglass Gold Chink, which was grand champion at Brockton, and at Springfield.

It has been suggested in Christchurch, in a discussion regarding women gardeners, that if a seed farm were started it would provide pleasant and profitable occupation for them. A record price for Australia was recently paid in Melbourne for merino wool. Under the Imperial requisition scheme the appraisers fixed 30fd per lb as the value for the top lot of a clip grown near Beaufort, Victoria. Values up to 30id were al&o paid in Geelong recently.

The swede turnip, the Southland farmers' best winter feed from the earliest times, is likely to become a thing of the past, says the Wyndham Herald. It cannot now be grown with the wonderful success that characterised it for so long. It has become subject to disease. For several seasons past in this locality dry rot made it such a disappointment that it has been discarded in favor of semi-hard varieties. Disease has been slower in spreading m the Fortrose-Waimahaka districts, but there, too, we are informed, not alone is dry rot in evidence, hut club root, which stunts the plant and robs the bulb, has sealed the doom of the swede. In those districts the diamond moth is reported as a coining menace to turnips—a pest that has worked havoc about Waipahi, we believe. It is pertinent to ask if anything is being done regarding these pests. Is the aid of the Agricultural Department being invoked to solve any of the problems?