NOTES AND COMMENTS

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXX, Issue LXXX, 14 February 1920, Page 7

NOTES AND COMMENTS

In a- note to the current issue of the .Journal ot Agriculture, tne Uovenmu-ii warns farmers as follows: Great care should be taken in buying paspalmn seed at tne present time owing to tJie .-fry inferior seed on the market rlhe x\ew Zealand grown seed of the 1919 .season snoivd on no account be sown un.iss its gcrminution capacity has wen obtained. Australian seed 'seems • airly satisfactory. In an address at the annual field day «i apiarists at the Raukura State larm, Mr T. \\\ Kirk, Director of Horticulture, gave some interesting figures showing tne increase in the so-called small industries of the Dominion, and their importance. He said that in 1911----the total output of honey and honey ?.q°i ,™St Doniini™ was worth *.di,UUU, while to-day at present prices it was worth something like £250,000 rhe capital invested in the industry in hives, colonies, pant, machinery, land Uc, represented £1,013,600. ' . "It you have got to b» pokin<r little f st"im,V, nts llp a cow>s teats," .said Mr A. 1. Ulake, in an address at Eketa■■:i.na, when dealing with mammitis, I think she s about done for milking" Mr Blake added, however, that in some cases such treatment might be advantageous, but only under the most scrupulous regard for sterilisation of everything used. Lots of dairy farmers only wash the udders and teats of their cows to make them uniformly dirty. The conditions in some sheds are simply worse than awful.—Mr A. T. Blake. Government Veterinary Surgeon, at Eketahuna on oaturday. .. With miking cows so valuable, and milk products of all sorts so high in price, the value of good hay is bein°more and more appreciated, and very nttle hay, even on the highways, is now allowed to go to waste. The hay harvest lias been practically all secured lor the present season in good order and condition (says the Otautau Standard). "Nurserymen are not business rn^ii " emphatically declared aduegate at the Nurserymen's Conference (says thf Lost). "Haven't you found it out yourselves when you deal with another" nur- | si-ryninn.? Nimvty per cent, of them j won t givf. you a prompt reply." "T have tound. that if thi-re is any money jutaehed to it, tlu»y will reply quick am 1 lively. declared another nursorvman amidst laughter. * * ' Careful experiments have proved that \ lctorian mountain ash is in every way .suitable for making butt.r-boxes' Mr H. R Mac-kay. a member of the Forestry Com nission, said recently that in tne past butter-boxes have been made ironi Now Zealand swamp pine cut in hoards ]2in by an inch thick Tirs meant that butter-boxes in 'Victoria alone consumed ten million super feet !of the wine annually. If the boxes were made from timber three-eighths of an inch thick, the annual consumption of timber would be four million feet. It had been reported that the Western Uistnet Prod-u-e and Insurance Coirnany had decided to purchase an area ot i land near Beech Forest as a site for saw-mills, and if Victorian mountain ash timber were used, the savins in the cost of butter-boxes woiv.d be consider- ; able. In the Agricultural Gezette of New South Wales for January, there appeara series of analyses of butter, which were taken to ascertain the percentage ol butter-fat and of water in an average sample. Samples from 21 factories were obtained for each month durin« the season 1918-19. The actual output ot choicest quality butter of each factory concerned was taken into account in the monthly averages, also in arriving at the average content for the year. The total quantity of choicest quality butter represented by these analyses \«as 24,975,8451b. The average fat content was 83.32 per cent., and water 14. .14 per ceit. This does not affect the principle-of the contention that in quoting the yields of cows, butter-fat should be given, and not commercial butter. It is announced from Chicago that the Armour Meat Packing Company made pnAS/ Sw S? les !? 3i 919 amounting to £207,- I W)0,000. and obtained a neKineome of £2,819,700.