ELECTRIC FARM.

Northern Advocate, 23 August 1924, Page 9 (Supplement)

ELECTRIC FARM.

A WEMBLEY WONDER. British farming, already threatened by disaster, demands the application of new and scientific methods to secure more economic employment of available labour. The British Electrical Industry has been wonderfully unselfish in showing, at the British Empire Exhibition, how the farmer may overcome the limitations which Nature has imposed upon him. Included in the Wembley wonders is an "Electric" Farm: an amazing- revelation to those who have not *een the electrically-operated farms of Holland and Switzerland.

The intention of the farm is to prove that, with electricity, more work is possible with less labour and less money. The exhibit demonstrates how electricity renders the farmer independent of weather owing to the fact that work can be done with extraordinary rapidity. There is a 40ft windmill, generating electricity, and within the enclosure are chaff cutters, cake breakers, machinery for treating cattle food, butter-churners, and cow-milking machines. In addition, there is a process for making hay without sunshine, the lighting of laying houses for increase in egg production, and a vast number of other form, dairy, and countiy estate operations.

The development of rural areas has in the past been adversely affected by the unutterable dullness of English village life. But electricity swoops this dullness away. The application of electric cooking in the farmhouse promises village communities many of the amenities of city life. Thus, within and without the faraihouse, electricity saves labour and brings the farmer's life and the farmer's wife another step along the road of contentment.

HEBREW INSCRIPTIONS. EGYPTOLOGIST'S FIND. Professor Hubert Gramme, of the University of Minister, publishes an article in the "Morgenzeltung" on some old Hebrew inscriptions discovered by Professor Flinders Petrie, the famous Egyptologist, in His excavations on the high plateau 'of Serabit-el-Chadarn, in the south-west of the Sinai Peninsula. Profesor Grimme states that he has deciphered the writing- and found it to contain the names of Joseph, Menasseh and Moses, the last-named .according to the context, being the great Law Giver, who writes of himself: "An Egyptian queen drew me from the Nile." Professor Petrie 's discovery, however, in Dr Grimme's opinion, shows that Moses derived the name of the Jewish God Jahwa, from that of the Egyptian God Jahu, and that the name Shadle applied to Him was derived from that of the Egptian God S;u>tu, who also appeared in a, burning bush. Peas and. beans particularly appreciate lime, potash, and phosphoric acid (as in super) in the soil, and if any of these are markedly deficient the crop will not reach its best. Carrots and parsnips appreciate potash and phosphoric acid. Turnips and swedes respond to dressings of super. Onions are rather gross feeders, and as such like complete manure, containing- more nitrogenous matter (in the form of blood and bone or in farmyard manure) than is usually the case. The distance apart of the rows is regulated largely by the height reached by the top growth; and in general terms the rows should be as far apart as the height of this growth, even to the cases of tall peas and beans, when the distance might reach to six or seven feet. In any case there shosld be ample room for working the soil beween the rows, for this is very necessary, not only to keep down weeds, but to aerate the soil and to conserve useful moisture during dry spells. ASPARAGUS. A fairly liberal dressing of KJainite (a mixture of potash and common salt) should be applfed, or a mixture of salt and wood ashes makes a good substitute. In a week or a frotnight's time a surface mulch of stable manure should be spread over the ground— perhaps two inches thick. This treatment will ensure succulent sprouts. First year's sprouts should not be cut, but the tops should be staked if necessary, in order to protect them from the wind. Second year's sprouts should be cut in moderation only, but thereafter may be freely made.