Farm and Garden.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 426, 10 April 1880, Page 25

Farm and Garden.

A curiosity in vegetation has been raised at Heleusbrook, Bruce County, Otago. It consists of a root of a red clover plant, and is eight feet in length, the. portion nearest the surface measuring threeinchesin circumference. The root was dug out with great care, but still the extreme bottom end remained in the ground. The plant is about two years old and comes from a paddock which yielded a heavy crop of clover hay.

Cut down all plants that have done flowering, and tie up those which require tying. Cut and dry everlastings for indoor embellishment or for wreaths of immortelles. A.ll bulbs intended for spring flowering should now be planted. Mow lawns, trim verges, and exterminate all weeds from walks ; gather flower seeds as they ripen ; and where autumn and winter blooming is required, plant out chrysanthemums, stocks, and wall flowers.

Mb. M. Combe, who for a long series of years has been engaged in developing the best points of -polled cattle, says that he has " come to the conclusion that the Aberdeen and Angus polled, and the Aberdeen and north country crossers, are the only cattleadapted, under ordinary circnmstancas, in the North of Scotland, for paying the feeders." This, after many years' experience in stock,, is saying a good deal for his breed of Poleys. The Oeelong Advertiser refers as follows to a movement which has been privately started there for sending a team of colonial ploughmen with colonial-made ploughs, to Great Britain the team starting from Melbourne, say, in July, po as to reach home in time for the fallmatches :—" So far the matter is only in its initial stage, but it is in the hands of a good representative Victorian farmer, and some of the most influential men in this district have promised him their active suppport. The promoter of the movement is Mr. John Dalley of Bellarines, an intelligent man, who has forupwards of 20 years been engaged in agricultural pursuits here, and who has taken numerous prizes, including champion medals, for his skill as a ploughman. Some two orthree years ago he went ' home,' and from what he saw then in the rural districts of England, Scotland, and Ireland, he has no doubt that such a team as he will select, with such colonial-made implements as they will take with them, will travel through the three kingdoms with an eclat equal to that which attended our riflemen and cricketers in the old country." The Advertiser suggests " that the Government may widely recognise in the project a means of doing great good for thecolony by giving Mr. Dalley a commission to lecture in the agricultural districts of the three kingdoms upon Victoria as a profitable field for skilled agricultural enterprise."

Some months ago (says La Nature) MGrandeau, director of the agricultural station at Nancy, announced that experiments madeupon Indian corn and tobacco proved that atmospheric electricity exercises a very favorable influence upon vegetation. M. director of the National Botanical Garden of Antibes, to-day makes known some facts which go to prove directly the opposite. Heexperimented on other plants, and in another climate ; and, as will be seen, he draws the conclusion that Mr. Grandeau's inferences were too general. According to him, atmospheric electricity, like all other agents of vegetation, plays a usual part, but which, in its absence, can be replaced by another force. The experiment was made in the following manner :—ln a kitchen garden bed, well exposed to the light, two squares of 51 decimetres each were selected at 6 metres apart, and in each of them wa3 planted a bunch of dwatf kidney

beans, a lettuce, a tomato plant, and two cotton seeds. One of the beds was left to itself, and the other was covered with an iron cage, the four uprights of which terminated in points to attract all of the atmospheric electricity. For a fortnight the two cultures appeared to be alike ; but at the end of this period, a difference wa3 observed between them, and the difference, which was to the advantage of the cage, kept increasing more and more. The bean plants under the cage were much better developed and much richer in seeds than those in the open air. As for the lettuce, its height in open air was 1 metre, and under the cage, l - 20 metres ; its total weight was 337 grammes in the air, and 427 grammes under the cage. The tomato plant in the open air has attained a height of 0 - 8 of a metre, and under the cage, 1 metre ; its weight in open air was 0'072 of a kilogramme, and under the cage, 3754 kilogrammes. While under the cage the-plant bore 83 tomatoes, weighing 2162 kil"grammes, the number on the plant in the open air was •only 37, with a weight of 1.08 kilogrammes. THE prospectus of " The Kiama and Gerringong Milk Condensing and Butter Company" appears among advertisements in recent Australian exchanges. The proposed capital is £6OOO, an influential b>ard of provisional directiou with Mr. S. Gray, M.L.A., one of the most influential of the land proprietors of the southern coast, at head, and the Secretary of the Agricultural Society of New South Wales, is acting as honorary secretary. It is almost unnecessary to add a word in the shape of recommendation to advance this praiseworthy project. The majority of our readers know that in the case of preserved milk in Australia as in New Zealand, "coals have been brought to Newcastle" for many years. In other words, tins of Swiss, andi AngloSwiss, and Irish milk have been sold in a country which should he exporting instead of importing such a useful commodity. It is stated in the prospectus that an Irish Condensing Company preserved milk profitably until the price of raw milk rose to 7Jd per gallon. If supplied with 3000 gallons of milk weekly, the proposed factory could turn out over 40,000 dozen tins in a year; but so ■•xtensive is the consumption of condensed milk in Australia that such a quantity would not meet the colonial demand. Then, as the operations of the company extend, or as fresh ■ factories are established, there are foreign markets ever ready to receive tinned milk. At a meeting of the Cen'ral Society of Chemical and Agricultural Industries and Sciences of France, M. Maurice Guyot, of the Echo Agricole, read his rept tt of the exterior and interior commerce reading to the dairy interests. It appears that the imports of condensed milk into France augment each year, and M. Guyot proposes that this branch •f commerce should be actively taken up, as condensed milk now costs £32,000 a year in this way. Further, we learn from English trade circulars that the manufacture of .condensed milk, as well as of coffee and milk, goes oh increasing, both on the > Continent and in England, and when wrought is Irighly remunerative to the eh —(holders. Last year there were imported by E mland 211,442 cases of condensed milk, as well as of coffee and milk, nearly double the number which was imported in 1875. Since the latter year the trade has been growing, and of late the consumption of condensed milk has increased enormously in Britain. Regarding the manufacture of*condensed milk, it is well to know that careful handling is the special requisite, and that the plant necessary is not very •expensive. GARDENING RULES. Fruit Garden. —Store past fruits as they be--come ripe. Apples will keep a long time if packed dryiu sand. The fine dry surface sand from the sandhills is most suitable. It has the same tendency to preserve apples as earth has to preserve potatoes, as is demonstrated in pitting them. Conservatory.—The shoots of geraniums -which are making a fine start after having been cut down, should be pinched back so as to induce branching. A well furnished plant is an ornament, but a drawn up one, even although the .bloom be better, has not the .same attraction as a mass of flower on a bushy specimen. Primulas, cinerarias, &c, should Tae shifted as they advance into larger pots, and kept near the glass. Care has to be taken that the soil does not become sour from too much watering, as damping off will be the consequence. "Vineries. —Black Hamburgh grapes and others must be kept perfectly dry, and have as much air as can be given safely. If plants are in the house and .cannot be removed, they should be watered with a small water-pot, care beino" taken that no water be spilled so as to induce moisture, as this would be detrimental to the fine blossom that should be on well managed bunches. _ . Kitchen Garden. —Cabbage, cauliflower, lettuce, radish, and onions may still be sown. Guano may be used to force them forward. It mas be observed, that Peruvian and Anagamos are the strongest —containing the most ammonia. THE COLORS OF SHORTHORNS. In the earlier history of the shorthorn, cloudy, and even black noses were frequent—indeed, even to this day, in some of the highest bred stock, dark noses will occasionally appear. This was the case even in the stock of Mr. Bate?, of Kirklevington, whose renown is world-spread—indeed, besides this noted herd, others, the property of distinguished breeders, have sometimes produced dark (but not black) nosed offspring. This defect is naturally more apparent in a white animal, and it is, moreover, a generally received opinion that with age the color of the nose becomes lighter. For instance, a calf born with what appears at or soon after birth to be a black nose, by degrees that organ assumes in course of time a bluish hue, and although it may be somewhat cloudy,

r can by no means be classed as a black-nose animal. Some critical persons have asserted that a dark nose is indicative of impure blood ; that it came in with the Collingcross of the Galloway cow : others that stealthy crosses of the West Island or other outside cattle introduced it, but no proof exists of either, and the question may at once be yielded that the highest-bred shorthorns with unimpeachable pedigrees be they " Bates" or " Booth" blood, will sometimes produce a dusky-nosed offspring. After all has been discussed on this subject, the color of the nose of an animal by no means whatever governs its essential good qualities ; and no matter what the hue of its no-e, the cow will milk as well and the steer feed as profitably as if that feature in them were the height of perfection. Turning to the bodily colors of shorthorns, the legitimate colors of the race have been red, in its different shades, and pure white, either one prevailing to greater or less extent over the entire body, or spreading in various proportions of each in distinct patches, or the promiscuous intermingling of both into either a light of red roan, as accident might govern, giving the animal a picturesque and most agreeable appearance to the eye of the spectator. About sixty years ago a preponderance of white and less of red was the usual color, and in many distinguished animals pure white was equally acceptable as red, red-and-white, or roan, with the best breeders. Indeed, so late as twenty years ago no objection was made to a good animal solely on account of color, either red, in any of its different shades, or their intermixtures with white or the pure white itself. Any shade, in fact, from the deepest to the lightest in the reds, to pure white, and their mixtures are legitimate shorthorn colors, and any choice in preference to more or less of those prevailing in the animal, is simply a matter of taste with the breeder or owner. There has, however, of late years grown up a fashion in colors, reds, and more especially rich roans bearing the palm, and this extends to foreign breeders and purchasers particularly. This fashion has probably been mainly induced by the increasing popularity of the Bates blood, they have more of it than almost any other distinct family tribe, for it does not, as a rule, predominate in any other tribes belonging to the different breeders in the United Kingdom. Some of the best bulls and cows ever exported to America, for instance, were pure white so late as twenty years ago, whilst at the present day, either at public or private sale, a white, or even white roan bull, unless of distinguished lineage, will sell for a much less price than a full red or red roan of equal quality, even when discriminating breeders in the more [substantial qualities are the purchasers. This partiality may with safety be termed prejudice, nay, further, a too far-stretched distinction so far as the true merits of the animal are concerned. A purely i red cow may be bred to a purely red bull, and a white or roan calf may be the produce, as is sometimes seen ; or a bull and cow of any other legitimate shades, white, roan, or of distinctly patched colors, may be coupled, and grades of color common to neither parent may be produced in the calf. In fact, color in shorthorns is not controllable—at all events, but partially so—except as through a persistent course of breeding to certain colored bulls, on the rule that " like begets like," will the pro-

duce inherit.the shades belonging to the parents,

and then not uniformly. Therefore there is little doubt that, qualities being equal, one color is just as good as another—no better, no worse—provided, of course. it f is legitimate. Still, fashion may rule for a time among breeders, as the color of a person's dress may rule in tha fashionable world of people, to be

discarded at the next freak of fancy or taste, as those who invent them may dictate. There is no doubt that not many years will transpire before good judges of shorthorns will look more closely to quality than color, being convinced that a fashion existing solely on prejudice or partiality cannot be permanent. ARTIFICIAL HATCHING OF DUCKS IN CHINA. The hatching of ducks by artificial means has been from time immemorial a prevalent custom in China. In Mrs. Gray's pleasantly written work entitled " Fourteen Months in Canton," recently published by Macmillan and Co., is an account of the method of procedure as witnessed by the lady, who writes as follows : " We entered one of the establishments for hatching ducks in the village of Pak-A-Ts'uen, and a more curious sight than this X have seldom seen. The whole process of hatching was shown and explained to us. The first is this : a number of eggs are placed in a basket filled with heated husks, or chaff of rice ; they are then removed iDto a dark jrooni and are put upon shelves of lattice-work. Under the lowest of these shelves there are grates filled with burning charcoal. The eggs remain in the heated room for twenty-four hours ; they are then removed into an adjoining room and are placed in cloths, about fifty in each cloth. The first cloth with its contents is lowered gently, to the bottom of a cylindrical-shaped basket made of rattan. Then a second cloth containing eggs is placed above the first, and so on until the basket is full. These baskets are about 3 feet high, and are lined with sheets of coarse brown paper. The eggs remain in these baskets for three weeks, but in order that all of them may be equally heated, men are employed to alter their position once during the day and once during the night, so, when properly looked after, the eggs which were at bottom in the morrdng should be at the top at night. How they are not broken when the men lift out the various cloths I cannot tell, but the Chinese are wonderful manipulators, they seldom injure anything they touch. At the end of the r . three, r weeks t .the eggs which have been placed in the ba.skets are removed to another room, and are arranged on very hard shelves of hard wood. They are then covered by sheets of thick, coarse brown paper, and

i here they remain for some hours, possibly for two or three days, when they burst into life. I was fortunate enough to see an immense number in the act of' being hatched ; hundreds of little ones peeped from their shells, and others were taking their first walk over the shells of their companions. Imagine a hatch of a thousand ! What would & farmer's wife say to it who shows you with pride a duck which has brought off fourteen little ones in triumph ? No tender care is taken of the newly-born, pretty little yolden balls. A man walks round and "roughly catches hold of as many as are free from their egg-shells, and throws them into a basket. They are then removed to the other part of the establishment and, when a purchaser arrives, are

i counted out by a man, wh© seizes four little ( necks at a time and cries out the number in . a high key. I saw a great many counted out l in this manner in this duck-breeding establish- • ment. The man, who bought hundreds of the • newly hatched ducks, took them off at once to . one of the duck farms to rear them. It is wonderful how the young duck manages to , crawl out of his temporary home when the moment csmes for him to be launched into i the world, as sometimes he i 3 partly under his neighbors' shelly coverings (the eggs are , arranged two deep) : but by delicate manceuv- ; ring he succeeds. It was fascinating to me to watch their efforts, and I could have remained a much longer time than we could allow in this part of the establishment. On leaving the hatching establishment we went on to a duck farm, if one may so call it, in the same village. We her* saw 3000 orphan ducks, which were about five or six weeks old, also many hundreds much younger in a place apart, all the latter being of the same tender age. There is no gentle care bestowed upon these unfortunates. They are not regarded individually, but en masse, and a certain percentage is always reckoned upon for casualties. We walked down a long street in the village, on each side of which were duck and geese dealers, with their birds in. I saw some of tha young ones placed in open wicker baskets suspended from bamboo poles over the shoulders of some men. They were taken to the river's bank and dipped, baskets and all, into the river, for health's sake, then brought dripping back to the particular spot of the street where their owners were wont to exhibit them. I had almost forgotten to say that the ducks and geese which are taken off in the duck boats do not cost their masters a cent for food. Twice during the day the duck boat is brought up to the side of the creek or river, the wooden compartments at'the side of the platform on which the ducks are kept is removed, and they are allowed to wander about the. banks at will finding most ample repasts in the worms, slugs, snails, and frogs which abound in the mud on the edge of the rivers and creeks at low tide. I have seen from 1500 to 2000 ducks gaining their own livelihood in this manner, as we have passed along the banks of the river. The most curious feature of this proceeding is that the ducks are trained to obey the human voice, and when, after a delay of two or three hours, the man in charge of them considers he has given them ample opportunity of feeding themselves off the various delicacies he does not provide for them, he makes a call, and the birds obey his voice at once, and return to the boat. They certainly cannot have learned obedience from their parents, never, from earliest infancy, having known a parent's care.