FARM NOTES FROM ENGLAND.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVII, Issue 11543, 30 November 1900, Page 7

FARM NOTES FROM ENGLAND.

[BT OCR ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL CORRESPONDENT.] HAitanAir, Qgtobei 5. THE HOP CROP. 'Accobpixg to the English Hopgrowera' Association, the average yield of hops in England this season is only 6c\vt per acre on 51,303 .lores; but to bo sure to put the estimate high enough they allow for 320,000ewt, and proceed to estimate tho world's prodtic-. tion as follows: — Cwt. England 320,000 United States 340,000 Germany .... 460,000 Austria ••• 200.000 Belgium and Holland ... - 45.000 France 30,000 Russia ... 65,100 Australasia and Canada 15.C00 Total 1,475,000 The crop is represented as a short ono in Europe and America alike. The world's annual consumption is set at 2,087.000cwt, so that reserve stocks will be drawn upon to the ■utmost limit. It is not uncommonly supposed, therefore, that hops will be dear, and growers are advised to hold their produce for an advance. Unfortunately, as a daily paper observes, the marketing of hops in England is done on such an atrociously bad system that the growers never get as much advantage as they ought to obtain when the supply is less than tho demand. This is the description of the system:—"The grower is very much at the mercy of the factor, who sells for him to the merchant, who soils in his turn to the brewer. There is only too much reason 10 bolieve that the factor often acts in the interest of the merchant than in that of the man who is nominally his client, inducing the latter to sell at as low a price as possible. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that some factors appear to act thus. This, at any rate, is what many growers declare, and eome of them can produce evidenco in support of their statements. In many cases tho growers are provided by the factors with money for picking and curing their hops, and it is supposed that the merchants furnish factors with funds for this purpose. As a rule, a merchant will not buy directly of a grower, and a brewer will purchase only of a merchant, and by this exclusiveness profits that should be obtained by the producer are swallowed up by middlemen." In any other country the growers, who are a comparatively compact body, would combine against this bad eystem, under which they are actually boycotted if they attempt to sell their hops to anyone directiy, instead of through a factor. Yet tho seen tary of the association writes to protest against the system being styled "atrooious," and then wonders that hopIgrowers generally do not join it. What is tho use of a hoDsrrowers' combination if not to get rid of a system which compels them to consign their produce to a man two places from the brewer and three or four places from the publican or the consumer? I was told the other day of a Kent grower who took a sample of his hops into Yorkshire and sold his growth to merchants there. On his return he informed the factor of what he had done, and as he was speaking the merchant who had usually bought his growth came into the office. The factor said:—"Mr. A. has been selling his hops in the North." "Very well," replied the merchant: " then I will never buy Mr. A.'s growth again, whoever may offer it to me." The grower, I am glad to say, told this arrogant gentleman that ho would endeavour to do without him, which greatly astonished the merchant, who was quite unused to a display of independence on the part of a grower. MANURES AND THE HERBAGE OF PASTURES. In the Journal of the Board of Agriculture there is a report by Mr. Somerville of the results of experiments which he has carried out on pasture to ascertain the effects of different manures upon the character of the herbage. Readers familiar with the RolhamEtcd experiments will remember that a piece of permanent pasture, originally practically uniform as to its herbage, has been converted into a set of patches differing entirely from each other in consequence of having been manured differently year after year for a long time. One artificial manure has encouraged the growth of the clovers, while another has discouraged it; a third has caused coarse to smother all tho finer herbage, while a fourth has starved the strong growers and helped to develop grasses of fine and delicate quality, and so on. But Dr. Somerville's results, or some of them, are more calculated to puzzle farmers and students than to enlighten them. The trials were carried out for the Durham College of Science at eight stations, and one experiment was intended to show the effects of different artificial manures upon the growth of agrostis, commonly known as " couch grass" or " twitch," which it is desirable to eliminate. The report states that nitrate of soda by itself had no marked effect unon this •weed-grass; that with superphosphate it diminished the proportion ; and yet that superphosphate alone increased it. Similarly, while superphosphate alone appeared to encourage agrostis, when nitrate of soda, or kainit, was added to it the effect was apparently depressing to the undesirable grass, and the doubling of the quantity of superphosphate had on enhanced effect in tho same direction. Surely these are anomalous results, as field experiments too often are. If the nitrate does not discourage agrostis and superphosphate distinctly encourages it, how can the two together discourage it? This cannot be the whole story, and probably the explanation of the apparent anomaly lies in the fact that the nitrate and superphosphate togethm _ merely encouraged other grasses, thus making the proportion of the agrostis less, though that grass was not actually discouraged by these manures. There are similar discrepancies in other declared results, and evidently they nave not been thought out with sufficient care and discrimination. The effect? of manures upon the leguminous herbage wore more consistent. Nitrate of soda diminished their proportion, while kainit increased it. But these results have often been demonstrated. Nitrate of soda stimulates tho coarse'grasses, r-o that they smother the small clovers and delicate grasses; while notash teeds the shallowrooted varieties, and does not afford any stimulus to the coarse kinds, gross foeders, which require nitrogen to enable then? to grow rampantly.