FARMING FACTS S. FANCIES

Northland Age, Volume 7, Issue 29, 22 April 1938, Page 2

FARMING FACTS S. FANCIES

The number of sheep in New South Wales on March 31, 1937, was 53,166,000, an increase of 1,230,000 on the previous year’s figures. X t t t A Stewartry (Scotland) farmer, Mr. Alexander Allan, has by the application of manure and clover seeds, turned peat land at Aughinleck into excellent pasture. X t X t According to the Australian Meat Board, of the 3,384,000 lambs exported from Australia for the six months ended December, only 36.65 per cent reached first grade. Seconds were 43.68 per cent and thirds 19.67 per cent. t t t t The high uniform production possible in groups of Ayrshires was strikingly demonstrated at the Fillmore Farm, Bennington, Vermont, U.S.A., where 152 head averaged 10,1701 b of milk, 4.04 per cent test, and 411.281 b of butterfat. t t t X On an ai’ea of 230 acres comprising a farm in the Morton Mains district (New Zealand) 700 long-wool breeding ewes produced 850 lambs, of which 726 were forwarded to the meat works in one draft off their mothers. The ewes were mated with Southdown rams. X t X X Mr. Thomas Shearer *has been employed on a farm in York Peninsula (Australia), for 55 years, having worked for three generations of the Jones family and is now with the fourth. Last harvest he was out on the header with the great-grandson of his first employer. X X X X In connection with the poor germination of ripe grass seed, the New Zealand Department of Agriculture has found that it is attacked by a fungus which thrives in damp and muggy weather conditions, reducing the interior of the seed to a soft slimy mass, and destroying the embryo. The disease is an obscure one which belongs to a type whose study is particularly difficult. t t J t In India the cow is considered a sacred animal and nothing connected with it is considered vile. Cow manure is moulded into cakes, plastered on the walls of the mud huts to dry, and then used for cooking and heating. It may also be mixed with sulphur and burned to keep away mosquitoes or used with tobacco in native “chilums” or earthenware pipebowls. Cow manui'e is sometimes mixed with plaster and straw to make building material. Native doctors use cow manure for poultices, the people endowing it with fabulous healing powers.

The 1937 Agricultural Returns show that 16,244 women and girls were employed regularly and 5954 casually in outside work on Scottish farms exceeding an acre in extent. t t t t

Using the forty-year-old plough with which his father took 263 championships, John Dixon, of Gleve Farm, Billingham-on-Tees, won his eightyfifth ploughing championship at Bedlington, Northumberland. X t t t Up to the end of December the latest outbreak of foot and mouth disease has involved the British Government in an outlay of £236,861 in compensation to farmers for slaughtered live stock. t t t I In 1936 the world used wool substitutes equal to 6,000,000 bales of greasy wool. Germany in 1932 manufactured only 2000 tons of wool fibre. The estimate given for 1937 was 80,000 tons and for 1938 138,000 tons. t $ $ $ The Latvian Government has approved a regulation that importers of wool and artificial wool must buy home-grown wool to the extent of 5 per cent of the weight imported. The Customs Department will only admit foreign wool if the importer produces a certificate of the purchase of the required percentage of local wool.

It is estimated that the Australian pack of high-grade dried fruits will this year easily exceed the 1933 record of 73,000 tons. X t t X What is believed to be a record weight for lambs consigned from the West Coast was established by a truck of 74 Romney lambs railed from Ross, South Westland, to the Belfast freezing works, near Christchurch. The dressed weight of the lambs averaged 51alb, compared with the average of 34 to 361 b. They were taken 90 miles by motor-lorry to the railhead.