EDITORIAL NOTES.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1182, 26 October 1894, Page 4

EDITORIAL NOTES.

We never like to play the pessimist, but it is folly always to tell what is merely the “ flattering tale ” which is the outcome of a too ardent hope. The butter export this year from New Zealand is to be exceptionally large, and a good many people are, we are afraid, counting their chickens before they are hatched, and are altogether too sanguine as to the prices to be realised by the factory output on the London market this season. The London correspondent of the Australasian sounds a warning note, we see, and echoes the belief of one of the most experienced London provision dealers that butter will sell at a reduction of 15s to 20s per cwt below the average of last year’s prices. Against one favourable factor tending to an expectation of higher prices or at least to a maintenance of the satisfactory prices of last season he quotes no less than four strong indications that prices will be lower, indeed, considerably lower.

The favourable factor is, he says, that last season the wholesale butter dealer and the grocer and butterman discovered that they could make more money by purchasing colonial butter than " they could by buying Danish, Swedish, or Dutch, arid naturally this will bring a greater demand than ever for the colonial product. As against this he sets forth the following facts, each and all of which will have a tendency to lower the price. This year there is 1500 tons of colonial butter in store, or one eighth of last year’s total colonial supply. In addition to this there is a large quantity of Irish and some Continental stored, waiting for higher prices. - Whether there is much stored in the colonies it is difficult to say, though it is believed that a small amount is in store. Last year there •was a drought on the Continent of a very serious nature that largely reduced the quantity of butter imported from there; this year there have been very abundant hay crops, and the autumn pastures are suoh as are seldom witnessed for large crops of good succulent grass, which is producing extra quantities of butter, so that we may look for a much larger importation of Continental butter than we received last year. A feature too little recognised last season was the great falling oft in English, Irish, and Scptch butter, owing to the drought. What the total amount of deficiency was there is no accurate means of knowing, but an estimate of 15 to 20 per cent, less production than in 1892 would not be far from the truth. This year, instead of a deficiency of 15 per cent, to 20 per cent, below the normal supply, there will, it is estimated, be at least a surplus of 5 per cent, above that standard. The hay crop has been very large, and the autumn pastures are similar to those on the Continent. To these unfavourable indications for high prices may be added the largely increased shipments of butter expected from New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, and New Zealand. It is also anticipated that Tasmania will

send us a small quantity. Finally, we must not forget that last season’s prices were higher than the average of previous years, and therefore the apparently large reduction of 15s to 20s is notja diminution on an average of normal years, but of a year in which prices were exceptionally high on the average.

The wire worm has been gradually increasing in the great onion growing district round Geelong, Victoria, until it has now, we read, very seriously deteriorated the quantity and the quality of the crop. The ravages of these minute pests are not, unfortunately, confined to onions, for it is stated that root and forage crops are also liable to be injured by them. “ Thistledown ” quotes the late Mr Mechi, the famous English scientific farmer, as having said that “rolling and salt” were a perfect cure for these worms. In preference to salt, says “Thistledown,” some farmers sow an admixture of nitrate of soda, in the proportion of lcwt of nitrate to 2cwt of salt. Experience has shown that the application of any stimulating manure suitable to the soil will be of service. Both soot and guano, for example, have been found a complete remedy for infested crops, the former being applied at the rate of 16 bushels to the acre and the guano at the rate of 2cwt; but with regard to special applications there is rnuch difference of opinion, arising, no doubt, from diversity of circumstance, soil, and locality. A crop of green mustard ploughed down when about a foot high is also a known remedy for wire worm. The notice regarding the killing of stoats and weasels published by the Agricultural Department in our advertising columns last week has roused the ire of a correspondent in the Feilding district, who writes us denouncing the protection of these imported enemies to the rabbit as being a gross injustice to the small farmers. His letter is too strongly worded to permit of its insertion in full, but we may state that he points out that in the Feilding district several cases have recently been reported where young lambs have been killed by stoats and weasels, whilst the latter animals are, he asserts,, a great nuisance to all poultry keepers. Our correspondent says that the wisest course to adopt would be to prohibit the killing of the animals in districts where the runs are large and where rabbits are found in great numbers, but in more thickly populated districts where the farms are of moderate area full liberty should be granted to the settlers ,to destroy stoats and weasels whenever and wherever they find them. Undoubtedly in some districts the regulations, if strictly enforced, will cause very serious discontent, and it might be well were our correspondent’s suggestion taken notice of by the Department.

At the recent summer meeting of the Yorkshire Veterinary Medical Association, held at Leeds, one of the speakers, Mr S. Chambers, who took part in a discussion on the “Feeding of Sick Animals,” said that in his district he heard of many farmers who obtained sheep'e liver, lungs, heart, &c., boiled them down, and gave the soup to cattle inclined to be tubercular, wasting, or thin; and he.was told such treatment acted very well. Commenting on this the English Agricultural Gazette asserts that “animal soup” for animals in case of illness or of wasting is undoubtedly beneficial. Soup is a great recuperative food for man. It is easily digestive, nutritive, and invigorating. It seems well-suited to the stomachs of cattle, horses, and sheep, and its administration in case of general debility and emaciation might well be more frequently adopted. Indeed, Professor Brown, in his “Domestic Veterinary Treatment of the Animals of the Farm,” reprinted in pamphlet form from the Journal of the K.A.S.E., says that “wonderful effects” have been produced by feeding animals on soup made by boiling pieces of any kind of meat.

The Wairoa Guardian asserts that the sheepfarmers of the district intend to employ only Maori shearers this season, and hints that this is a result of the way the present Government have favoured the Labour Party. If the Guardian be correct in this assumption, the Wairoa station-holders are acting in a manner which should earn for them an unenviable notoriety. Many of the shearers in that district are small settlers and their sons, who look to the shearing for a little extra

assistance to their means of living, and it is grossly unjust to punish them for having voted for the Government candidate at the last election, for that, we hear from a Napier correspondent, is the true reason of the native shearers being employed. Such contemptible tactics only recoil on the heads of those who practise them, and we do not think the course adopted by the stationholders will do the local Conservative interest much good when the next general election comes round.

It will be remembered that a few years ago a polled Aberdeen-Angus cow beat all comers at the London show of the British Dairy Association both as to quantity and quality of the milk. To those of the present day who only know the black (i doddies ” as an excellent breed of beef cattle the triumph of this cow as a milker came in the nature of a surprise ; but in a letter written by the late William McCombie, of Tilly four, in January, 1872, to Mr T. F. Jamieson, of Ellon, A.berdeenshire, he states that his cow Daisy, who was full sister to the celebrated Fride of Aberdeen (581), lost her calf one year and was milked by hand and gave fourteen Scotch pints a day for six months, and he had many others which gave ten to twelve Scotch pints a day. Another cow whose milk was measured gave fourteen Scotch pints a day for the same period as Daisy, the milk being of the finest quality, and throwing “an immensity of cream.” The Scotch pint is equal to three imperial pints, so that fourteen Scotch pints would be equal to five gallons and one quart, or 52&1b. Mr Fullerton, of Ardovie, the breeder of the celebrated cow Black Meg, and from whom Mr McCombie got the foundation of some of his best tribes, speaks most highly of the breed as milkers. In a letter of the same date as Mr McCombie’s, cited above, he says, “ I have frequently had to purchase Ayrshire cows at a scarce time, but have often found these give such poor, thin, blue-looking milk that my men would not submit to be supplied with such, nor, on having the milk tasted, could I blame them for being dissatisfied ; but I never yet heard any such complaint arise about the milk given by black polled cows,” Mr Fullerton in the same letter gives some indications of a good milker. He says, “ T never knew a cow with a sleek, dogged, thick skin a good milker, nor of that aptitude to fatten which a cow of mellow touch, where you can bury your hand in her hair, always has.”