The Farmer

Manawatu Times, Volume XLVII, Issue 2777, 19 October 1923, Page 8

The Farmer

The water drunk by animals passes directly into the blood, and if it contains organic elements in solution they are carried along with it, and cause liver and other disorders. Therefore it should be pure.

A cwt. of good, rich grass consumed by a cow in on e day, yields approximately 281 b. of dry feed, nearly 8£ gallons of water, and constitutes about 2.70 per cent protein, 12.00 carbohydrates, 0.50 fats—a nicely balanced ration. But this grass is watery and lacks body in the spring, is poor in quantity and succulence in the late season. It is then that production can be kept at the peak by supplementing the grass with fodder crops, ground grains, and meals.

Although the "Wanganui Rabbit Board has nof been long in existence, it has made a very good clear up of the country between the No. 1 line in Wanganui County and the sea, and whore rabbits were once plentiful thoy are now getting scarce. The cost of the operations has been compara. lively light, and not only has feed in the. affected locality bcon saved but the spread of the pest inland has been largely prevented. There is a/movement now on foot to rako further rabbit areas along the coast.

The reason Mr. Burbank crosses a pair of plants is to break up their old habit and form of life, and get variations. Back of these two plants, he knows, are a million tendencies, he sees heredity in, a new form, it is, as he defines it, " the sum of the effects of all the environments of past generations on the responsive, ever-moving life-forces; or, in other words, a record kept by the vital principle of its struggle onward and upward from simpler forms of life; not vague In any respect, but indelibly fixed by repetition."

With regard to weekly advice as t'o Home market prices for frozen pork, the following letter has been received by Mr J. A, Nash, M.P., from Hon. J. G Coates:'"Wlth reference to the representations which were made to me recently at Palmerston North, irv re.speq; to the promulgation of tho English price for frozen pork, I havo to inform you that the matter was referred to the secretary of the New Zealand Meat Producors' Board, who now advises me that the Board has already taken steps for the Smithfleld market price of pork to be included, when available, i» the weekly cable received by the Board from its London Managor, and which is regularly published in the press throughout the Dominion,"

A farmer writes in the " Dannevirke News,". "The dairy farmer, and 'JO per cent, of them at that, foolishly allow the. lumps of cow manure dropped on their pastures to kill the grass outright and make the"land cow slc.n., because they are too lazy to rake these lumps off the spot upon which they were dropped by the cows and break them up to fertilise future growth of grass. Not one in 10 farmers have sense and enough energy to do this simple and most essential work Tons of butterfat are lost yearly through this gross neglect of the indolent dairy farmers. Grasses would improve, not run out as they now do if farmers would only rake or harrow their pastures every week or so. Unless cow droppings are properly spread pastures are ruined and the farmer who does not observe this fact should be lucked off the land he destroys."