THE FARM.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 766, 5 November 1886, Page 15

THE FARM.

MAXIMUM POTATO YIELDS.

We are now digging and weighing the potatoes of our rich soil plot, where, perhaps, about 500 different kinds have been raised during the past eight years. The average yield seems to increase every year, .and the question arises whether it would not pay to treat, large areas just the same as this little plot has been treated. Tbe entire yield this year will ceitainly exceed 800 bushels to the acre. Our treatment of this land seems to indicate that potatoes, to give maximum yields, not only need complete fertilizers, but that they need every form of plant-food, the effects of which the chemist may not be able either to estimate or recognise. We have used upon this plot every availabe form < f potash, phosphoric acid and nitrogen, as well aa sulphur, magnesia, salt, lime, sand and muck. No matter, however, what the soil is made up of, if we could raise such immense potato crops year after year evidently it must not only be retentive and moist, but also well drained. Such land is rarely to be found. But, when it is found, we should not, with our present experience,. hesitate to supply the conditions of this plot; and we should Lei that the money could not be more wisely invested upon the farm.

L AMENESS.FEOM-CASTING A SHOE-" Frequently, while driving a horse over a rough road, he will cast a shoe, and before reaching home or the next blacksmith, will go. lame. £f the foot be examined it will be found hot, and tender to the touch, and the horn of the hoof, where the edges have come in contact with the ground, turned up and jagged. The oanse of tbe lameness is due to the separation—imperceptible, perhaps —of the lamina or layers of the- horny hoof. The treatment consists in rest and the removal of the rough jagged edges of the hoof with a good horse-Bhoer’s rasp, such as should bs on every well-ordered farm. If the tenderness persist, let the hoise stand with hi 3 foot in a pail of warm water. The horse may be shod in a day or two.

A successful Canadian dairyman thinks bran, peas, and corn mixed the best butterproducing food for cows. Cows should be milked with dry hands. The food for poultry should be varied, t're wants of the fowls should be studied and they should ba fed, too, with punctuality, faithfulness and discretion’ to insure the best results.