AGRICULTURAL JOTTINGS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXIII, Issue 9091, 30 April 1890, Page 7

AGRICULTURAL JOTTINGS.

(Canteriitry Times.) Last week we referred at some length to the' reputation home by our butter in the English markets, and the following observations by the London ,Standard on the same subject will now be read with interest —“ New Zealand dairy farmers and shippers of butter should,” says our contemporary, “ be put on their metal by the great success which has attended the first attempt of Victoria to ship butter extensively to this country. From a circular of Messrs Henry Page and Son, of Water lane, we see that while Australian butter is selling at 90s to 106 s per owt. New Zealand butter is worth only 30s to 102 s, very little of it being sold at the top price. It is strange that the New Zealand exporters, after some years of experience, -should continue to supply us with butter either so badly made or so carelessly packed that a great deal of it has to be sold as grease.” The London correspondent of the Australasian makes some remarks on the preparation aad packing of butter for export, which are well worth quoting. It is found that tho square boxes, however well made, do not arrive air tight, and consequently the butter is not in so good a condition as that shipped in kegs.' The parchment in which the butter is ttocased is a great preservative. Merchants and buyers complain that the dairyman puts no mark on the boxes or kegs, as the Danish and German dairymen do, consequently a butter factor in the Colonies who has bought butter from say twenty or more different dairies marks it with his own brand, and a dealer who thinks he is purchasing a number of kegs or boxes of what appears to be one kind of butter, subsequently discovers that he has numberless varieties. This inflicts an injury on all the best butter, for before purchasing a number of parcels the London buyer insists on having a proportion of them opened, and finding some inferior purchases the whole on the inferior basis. It would be a good thing if the Colonial dairyman were to imitate his Danish com- ' -petitora, and with a hot iron burn into every keg or box his own trade brand. Some few do this, and buyers are gaining such .confidence that they buy such butters onbrand. > The same authority goes on to say : This burning in of the dairy brand would not prevent the Colonial butter factor from , using Np own special brand, which is. indeed necessary, as the merchants here like ap few generic brands as possible. Soma dairies jjre becoming noted for the excellent quality of their butters. These are mostly factories, and among them may bo mentioned the Cobden.the New Plymouth, the Camden, and the Anchor. Some of the boxes in which the consignment of the Auckland Dairy Association just received in the Austral were packed had a distinct taste of fish—-some very slight, others offensively strong. Is this caused by the salt, or by the herbage ? Apparently it is the salt, for the brands which taste most fishy are \ those with the most salt. In one mer■v chant’s store, where over 1000 parcels of ‘the Cuzco’s butter were seen, only 62 were found to be choice, many of the remainder.

whilepoeaessing an excellent texture, being inferior in flavour; others were both poor in texture aa well aa in quality. The prices that have been realised should not bo taken as indicative of those that similar butters would secure in a normal winter. In Europe and America the winter has been very mild, "nd consequently prices are at least a penn;. ' pound less than they would be in an ordinary season. .A contributor to one of the' Wellington papers is exercised by the differences in the prices realised for beef and mutton in the .principal stock markets of the Colony. He shows that the Wellington producers receive 50 per cent less than the values ruling in Christchurch and Dunedin, and that the consumer obtains no corresponding advantage. This is attributed to the fact that the Wellington consumers obtain their meat supply from two large Comjr paniesthat purchase from the producer, and -%ala<%mfc»aae in th eir operations f reez i ng and m for export. There is, in short, only the feeblest competition for fat stock, and aa a result the buyers satisfy their requirements at prices much below those ruling in other centres. This is certainly a very unfortunate state of affairs for the Wellington producers, but it is unreasonable to blame the Companies for securing their stock in the lowest market. If there is any enterprise at all about the local graziers they will not sit quietly under a disadvantage which a little scheming and combination might speedily remove. At the Irrigation Conference in Victoria, Mr A. N. Pearson, the Government Agricultural Chemist, read an interesting paper bearing on the fertilising elements in river water. He stated that river waters which had been analysed contained more or less fertilising matter, and the average of the various results of analysis seemed to be about 4s or 5s an acre for a depth of 20in of water. While a wheat crop of 40 bushels an acre would take out elements valued in the same way at about 45s an acre, the result was decidedly in favour of irrigation. The 40 bushels of wheat, if obtained, would take out 45s worth of fertilising matter whether irrigated or not, while, if irrigated 4s or 5s worth would have been added by the river water. Mr Pearson also pointed out that a crop which suffers from drought takes up an undue proportion of the valuable mineral elements from the soil, so that sufficient irrigation would be beneficial in reducing . this cause of exhaustion to a normal condition. Not only are elements of fertility added to the soil by irrigating with river water, hut there are good grounds for 'believing that these elements act beneficially in the way of dissolving other constituents of the soil, and thus render them available for use by the growing crops. Three years ago, in July, 1887, Mr L. A. Macpherson, a land-owner in Staffordshire, imported to England from New Zealand a t, small flock of merino sheep. The experiment did not attract much attention at the time, the majority of British flockmasters concluding that the failure of a similar experiment with Spanish merinos a century ago had finally established the impossibility of acclimatising fine-woolled sheep. However, Mr Macpherson quietly persevered and the result is a pronounced success. The flock just before the last lambing season had increased to fifty-five, and they were bearing the English climate wonderfully well. They crossed well, not only with Lincoln and Leicester ewes, bub with Shrops, Herdwicks, Cheviots, and Scotch black faces, and several young rams were let for the , ason at £lO each. The ewes exhibited a the Royal Windsor Show attracted considerablenotice, and everyone was surprised to find wool of such fine quality grown in England. Mr Macpherson has a flock of cross-breds at Corrimony, in Invernessshire, where he keeps four of his young merino rams for crossing with Scotch blaok-faced ewes. This cross he finds a most profitable one for high country, as they are very hardy, and stand the climate as well, if not better, than the native sheep, while they clip fully one pound more wool, which is worth much more than pure black-faced wool. The introduction of the merino promises to have an important bearing on the future operations of the sheep-breeders of Great Britain. It is comforting to learn from a second letter Mr Kaina Jackson has addressed to the Times on the declining fertility of the earth, that he never meant to predict a dearth of food. There seems no reason to apprehend any considerable reduction of available fertilisers for many thousands of years, because improvements in farming will more than make up for extra difficulty in extracting mineral manures from tbs ■bowels of the earth,while the means of increasing the store of nitrogen in the soil are already within our reach, and may be indefinitely increased by future discoveries. The chances of some future generation being frozen out appear much less remote than the chances of its being starved . out. The quantity of wheat and flour afloat for the United Kingdom on April 10 compares with that at* previous dates as fol-lows:—-On April 16, 2,070,000qr5; the previous week, 2,700,000qr5; a year ago.

1,892,000qr5. The quantity of wheat and flour afloat for the Continent compares with that at previous dates as follows : On April 16, CCO.OOOqrs; the previous week, 604,000qr5 ; a year ago, 356,000qr5. The estimated American visible supply of wheat and flour compares with that at previous dates as follows: —On April 16, 26.144.000 bushels; the previous week, 26.848.000 bushels ; a year ago, 29,500,000 bushels. Further accounts of the progress of the London wool sales confirm the decline in prices reported last week. The demand has been weakened by the extensive purchases made in the Colonies, and competition is largely confined to foreign buyers, while a considerable quantity of wool has been withdrawn. The English wheat market is rather firmer, showing a general rise of nearly Is a quarter, and tho Continental and American markets have an upward tendency. Frozen meat is still in good demand, lamb selling at Old, Canterbury mutton at 4tjd and beef at 4Jd. Hemp is slightly better value, but tallow has fallen Is all round.