RURAL TOPICS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXX, Issue 14982, 30 April 1909, Page 8

RURAL TOPICS.

AGRICULTURAL AND PASTORAL. A threshing plant at Dromore has just been laid up after the threshing of 85,000 bushels of mixed cereals this season.

The frosts that have occurred in Ashburton of late have been so sharp and continuous that vegetation of all classes has,received a severe check.

A pair of pedigree black and white collie dogs were landed from the Langton Grange at Lyttelton a week ago, consigned to Air T. P. R-oberteon, and were placed in quarantine at Quail Island.

Some very good wheat crops have been threshed by Air John Coolirane, ot Elgin, a paddock of thirty acres giving a return of well over 50 bushels per acre.

Air John Cooke, a well-known meat operator of Victoria, says the export of lambs from Argentina will increase .in volume and become a permanent feature in the meet trade of that oountry.

The Akaroa correspondent of the “Lyttelton Times” reports that the oocksfoot market is still lifeless. There is no demand for seed, and it is feared that growers will have to hold until the spring-sowing. The walnut - crop, a considerable item in Banks Peninsula products, is now harvested. It is a small crop, owing to the hailstorms at the beginning of the year. The yield of apples is much smaller than in previous years, but pears are a good average crop.

Threshing is now finished at Cheviot, writes the correspondent of the “ Lyttelton Times,” both mills in the district having stopped. AVhile a good.deal of oats is still m stack, being retained for chaff, the following average gives a. fairly correct representation of the general yield :■—Wheat, 42 bushels per acre; oats, 46 bushels; barley, .32 bushels; grass seed, 20 bushels. One paddock of oats of fourteen acres, belonging to Air James Upritchard (Domett), threshed 96 bushels per acre.

There is a risk of . injury to live stock if they should happen to have access to pastures recently dressed with superphosphate. The danger is not very serious, but it exists, as may be gathered from the report of the chemist to the Highland and Agricultural Society. Some fowls having died soon after a dressing of superphosphate was applied to grass land to which they had access, a sample of the manure was sent -for analysis, and Air Hendrick states that a trace of arsenic was found in sulphate of ammonia, and a heavy trace in superphosphate. The chemist adds that the manures which are most likely to contain. • arsenic aro soluble phosphates, such as euperphosEliate; but hitherto no evil results have eon noted, and there is further assurance in the certainty that the arsenic does not pass into the crops dressed' with the manures.

Lampas is a common disease among stable horses, and the barbarous practice of operating with, hot irons on the tender bars of the horse’s mouth _ is often followed with a view to effecting a cure. The disease affects young horses before they have their full set of teeth. Young horses; changed from green pasture to dry, hard feed in the stable, are much troubled with it. The bars of the roof of the mouth will inflame, and the horse refuse to eat the feed. The treatment should be simple. It is to give soft feed, consisting of bran mashes, to keep the bowels open, soaked or scalded oats, boiled roots, etc., for a few. days, ,and' the trouble will generally disappear. ' In cases of loss of appetite,, one teaspoonful to one tablespoonful of rex conditioner may be sprinkled over each feed. This will restore a vigorous appetite. Burning the horse’s mouth ruins the delicate sensitiveness to_ the touch of the reins so necessary in a pleasant, well-broken roadster. It often destroys the palate, and makes the horse a.confirmed “ wheezer.” Burning is inhuman, and lessens the value of the horse, and is unnecessary. Some investigations carried out under the auspices of the Highland and Agricultural Society to some extent contradict the common belief in the value of warmth. The object of the test was to ascertain how far the yielding properties of the cows were influenced by the temperature of the sheds in winter. According to these results the warmth of the atmosphere in cow sheds will hare no appreciable effect upon the yield of milk. It matters little whether, the temperature of a cow shed is 50 degrees or 60 degrees, so long as it is maintained at a. fairly uniform level. If. is not a low temperature or a high temperature that affects the milk yield, but sudden or frequent changes from oue to the other. The cow is as mercurial, in respect to heat or cold as a human being, and her utility funotions are liable to fluctuate with variations in the temperature in which she lives. The temperature indoors will vary almost as abruptly and as widely as that in the open,. and therefore the general practice in Now Zealand of giving the cows no more shelter at night than that afforded by a. waterproof rug seems to be in accordance with the teachings of science.