JOTTINGS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1194, 18 January 1895, Page 4

JOTTINGS.

Tliq harvest of fruit in Masterton this year, says the Masterton Star, will be a very poor one. The cause of this' is the existence of so many blights. Apple trees are affected by the codlin moth, woolly aphis, and scaly blight. Plum trees suffer from the leech. Pears and peaches are affected with blight, grapes are mildewed, and almost every other kind of fruit is more or iess damaged. Orchardists in this district do not appear to understand fruitgrowing. If they do, they neglect the most important conditions for the successful culture of fruit. Before the fruit industry can be a success in this part concerted action will have to be taken to rid the orchards of the numerous blights by which they are affected. Individual effort cannot be of the slightest avail. It would be well for all concerned if a Fruitgrower’s Association were formed and methods adopted for ensuring the successful conduct of an industry which is of great importance to the district.

From our report of the proceedings nt the Police Court this morning, says the Manawatu Times, farmers will notice that several fines were recorded against owners of sheep infected with lice Mr Blundell, Stock Inspector,, informed his Worship that there was no excuse for the farmers, as shearing was over, and sheep should be dipped. If sheep were allowed to remain as at present, the country would never be any better than it was It is the Inspector’s intention to watch the saleyards carefully, and no doubt for the future farmers will ascertain that their sheep are clean before driving them to sales, in order to avoid fines.

The Melbourne Government, saysthe London correspondent of the Australasian, have sent over a patent box for carrying butter as ordinary cargo. The box consists of an outer casing of wood, an inner lining of tiles, with an intermediate layer of thick cardboard. The butter which arrived in this curious package was rancid, and so far the experiment was a dead failure. It is also a doubtful success from another point of view. To bring half a cwt. of butter by the new package if it were in the shape of the present box the amount of space occupied by the actual package seems enormous* For instance, to carry a cubic foot of butter (172 Sin) it requires 1530 cubic inches of box. It is difficult to calculate the weight of this package, but it must be inch for inch as heavy as the butter, and as a cubic foot of butter weighs 561 b, the weight of this box would be between 451 bto 501 b to carry 561 bof butter. The idea of carrying butter as ordinary cargo ought to be consigned to the limbo of exploded theories.

Mr C D. Smith, of the Michigan Agricultural College, writing to tho

National Dairyman in October last, Ba y S; —“Some experiments we have recently made in butter making go far to show us that where the utmost care is taken to keep the milk free from infection from the time it leaves the cow’s udder until the butter is packed, it is not a question of great importance whether the butter is washed or not. I am not prepared to say as yet that the statement is true where rigid cleanliness is not insisted upon. W e have divided a good many churnings of butter into two parts as soon as the churning was completed. One of these parts we have salted, worked, and packed without washing ; the other half we have washed thoroughly and salted and packed in the usual way. The expert to whom the samples of butter have - been submitted could detect no essential difference in the taste of the butter, either when fresh or after it had been kept for several weeks.” The editor of the journal quoted adds in reference to this matter : buttermakers did not wash their butter, yet stood right up with the French, who did wash. We have always advocated a slight rinsing, but fought the leaving of the butter lo soak in water (as we have seen some American makers do) for quite a while. If the butter is thus left and repeatedly washed, we feel sure the experts will find a difference. Enough stress cannot be laid on the purity of the water used, a precaution which but few makers give any thought.”

Harvesting is now in full swing in the Lower Talley, Wairarapa. Some of the crops ot oats are producing very satisfactory yields.

If a horse has an attack of colic take him out of the stable at once, so that he will not bruise himself. Give him a pint of raw linseed oil at once. Bicarbonate of soda is also good. Rub him W6II on the belly with wisps of straw and the hands. If taken in time, says the Rural World , this is usually a cure.- ...

The death of a milch cow in Lancashire under peculiar circumstances led to an investigation, when it was found that the animal's heart had been pierced by a hairpin. A woman was in the habit of feeding and milking the cow, and it is supposed the instrument of death in this case fell from her hair.

The question as to the benefit to be derived from grooming milch cows has late!y been put to a practical test by a German professor. Two well-bred cows were chosen for the experiment, and for seven successive days they were all curry-combed and brushed. After an interval of two days the cows were again well groomed for another week. The following results were obtained : Yield of milk for the fourteen days when, the cows were groomed, 63 3 gallons; percentage of butter fat, 4*007. Yield of milk for fourteen days when the cows were not groomed, 59 gallons ; percentage o f butter fat. 3 976- It will be seen from the foregoing that both the yield of milk and the percentage of butter fat were increased dining the period of grooming A similar experiment was made in Holland, and the result showed that the attentirn paid to the skin of the milch cows increased the yield of milk about four per cent. Nothing is said of the food given to the animals during these experiments, hut we may naturally conclude that the grooming would increase their appetites.

The New Hampshire Experiment Station issues a press bulletin giving results of a dairy test at Strafford County Fair. Eighteen cows were entered, divided as follows : Four each of Ayrshire and grades, eight Devons and two Jerseys. In quantity of milk the Ayrshire showed the best single cow. One of the Jerseys was next, and a grade cow was third. The richest safnple of milk was from a Devon, showing 6 2 per cent. The next richest was from a Jersey, and marked 5*9.5. per cent. The poorest milk was only 2'45 per cent., or less than the legal standard. The test brought out another fact that deserves to be considered. It was not the cow that gave the richest milk that made most butter. One co w giving milk showing by test 5 - 7 7 of butter fats gave only 13|lb of milk per day. Another cow giving milk with 3 85 of butter fat yielded of milk per day, and made butter at the least cost. It is to be remembered also that milk has a good deal of value aside from its butter fat for food. Seven I thousand pounds of three per cent, j milk makes more butter than will

five thousand pounds with four per cent, of fat, or four thousand pounds with five per cent, of fat. -

The Hawercb Star says :—Lower down the coast come reports of the depredations of caterpillars, and considerable loss to farmers has resulted. In order to save the crops from total destruction it was found necessary to cut the crops before the grain had fully matured. Nearly every farmer has suffered ; in fact it is said that the caterpillars have never been so bad in the Waverley and Waitotara districts as this season, and that the promise of a prolific crop had never been better, and a quantity of this season’s crop will hardly be worth threshing. The caterpillar scourge has again made its appearance in this district, though the evil effects are not so great as lower down the coast. The oat crops ou the plain promises well, and from present appearances should yield heavily.

It is stated that a settler of Hawke’s Bay who, last season, shipped Home several thousand sheep during list month, received returns amounting to Is 4d per head, including the pelt, with a small sum yet to come for wool. These sheep could have been sold iocally for about 10s a head, thus the shipper suffered to the extent of about 7s 6d per head.

The Springlands creamery, the second of the creameries which the N.Z. Loan and Mercantile Agency Company have erected in connection with the Marlborough Dairy Factory, was opened last week by Mr. T. H. Hanna, the manager of the Company’s Blenheim branch. Mr. Williams has been appointed manager, and the creamery is now in full swing.

The milk testing question, says a writer in the Hawera Star, continues to be an absorbing topic with suppliers to dairy factories. To many a bush farmer there appears to be an air of mystery concerning the tester, and so long as this exists suppliers will not view the Babcock or any other tester, however accurate it may be, with any degree of genuine support. Settlers cannot understand why cows of the same breed, in the same condition, and fed on the same grass, with only a fence dividing the herds, show so wide a difference in percentage in quality '

Unless confidence is established in the present system of testing and payment by results there will always be dissatisfaction, and the question just now is how to establish that confidence. Scientific men are agreed that the Babcock tester is a true one, and when it is worked by capable hands there is no doubt regarding its correctness. Seeing the dissatisfaction in this district regarding the matter just now, the Department of Agriculture might well send an expert here to test the milk of the various factories, and show suppliers that the Babcock is a reliable tester.

A remarkable collection of insects, says the Hawke’s Bay Herald , came to light at Springhill station, Mohaka, a day or two back. A shearer was handling a well-conditioned merino wether when one of the animal’s horns accidentally got knocked off, and a number of large white grubs fell on to the floor. They were collected to the number of 17, and forwarded to Napier. It is surmised that they are “hot” grubs, but until experts have expressed an opinion on the subject nothing definite can be stated. We can only hope that the grubs are not “ bots,” or that if they are they are not going to pester and destroy the sheep as they are doing the horses. We hope in a few days to be able to speak authoritatively as to the denomination of the new parasite. It would be interesting to know how the creatures found their way into the horn, as though the substance was not sound no sign of an aperture was visible.

A correspondent writing to a contemporary, says : It has often occurred to me to ask why parsley had not been sown on the plains of Canterbury as feed for sheep. It is a fine feed, and they are very fond of it, and during the summer months, when the grass is burnt up with drought, the parsley serves for herbage, and they have the dry grass to counteract the effect of scouring. It imparts to their flesh a very agreeable flavour, making a greater demand for the sheep fed on it. Some farmers say that parsley is an effectual cure for rot in sheep, although I cannot speak on this point by experience. Some will say, how could they buy parsley seed at Gd per oz to bow ia their fields with the grass seed ?

They will get over this difficulty by the following advice: Sow lib of seed in some corner of the garden, and although parsley only seeds the second year after it is sown, yet in two years you will have about two bushels of seed from the seed you had then sown Continue to sow every year that small quantity to keep up in seed, or more if you intend to follow it on a large scale. I may tell the critics that this is no plagiarism, but my own practical experience on a small, light gravelly hill farm in Scotland.

President Scott, when he first took hold of the Cincinnati Southern Railway, U S A., wasgreatly annoyed by the claims for horses and cattle killed by trains on their way through Kentucky. It seemed as though it were not possible for a train to run north or south through Kentucky without killing either a horse or a cow. And every animal killed, however scrubby or miserable it may have been before the accident, always figured in the claim subsequently presented as of the best blood of Kentucky. “ Well/’ sfid Scott, finally, one day, “ I don’t know anything that improves stock in Kentucky like crossing it with a locomotive.”

Pigs will eat and profitably digest more corn if one-fourth of the grain ration is composed of wheat bran. Roots must not be forgotten ; turnips, beets, potatoes, or carrots, when mashed or sliced, afford a most desirable supplement to a diet of corn. They are cooling and laxative, and materially aid and promote digestion. Swine will fatten much more and at less cost when allowed a little bran and a few roots daily than when confined to a diet of corn. According to an article recently contributed to one of the Western Aus-

tralian papers, the inventor of the stump-jumping plough, Mr R. B. Smith, is now living at Beverley, in that colony. The writer quotes from a paper by Mr R. D. Ross, President of the Royal Agricultural Society of South Austrafia, to show that Mr Smith spent a number of years and exhausted all his means in South Australia in endeavouring to perfect his invention. So impracticable did his idea appear to others that he

was unable to raise sufficient money to have it protected ; but later on, when its advantages became apparent, the South Australian Government granted the inventor LSOO, thus compensating him to a small extent for the loss of patent rights. The invention is patented in Western Australia, but Mr Smith’s receipts from his invention, valuable as it admittedly is, are very small. He holds that the plough is not now being constructed on the mechanical principles which should be observed, and that consequently it i 3 not so good as it might be.

Hitherto the application of Bordeaux mixture for suppression of pear scab have'not been so eminently successful as with apple scab, and yet the two fungi belong to and are only species of the same genus. The editor of the Rural North-West, after three years’ experimental work, now, in 1894, announces that 1500 Bartlett pears arc now healthy, vigorous, and ai-e bearing the cleanest fruit ever seen in the orchard. - TRe trees were thoroughly sprayed with very strong Bordeaux .mixture , before the leaves came out, and sprayed three times with ordinary summer strength Bordeaux mixture whilst the leaves and fruit were on the trees. ‘ The editor says the result has been so markedly favourable that he will never think of omitting the spraying with Bordeaux mixture any future season*

A writer in Gardening Illustrated suggests the utility of grafting a number of kinds of pears on a single tree for household use. Not many families can consume the produce of a large tree, ripening about the same time, whereas single limbs of various sorts, ripening in succession, would yield welcome supplies. This plan has been pursued to advantage by the American amateur, and extended to embrace other fruit.

Sprains of the leg are a fertile source of trouble to horseowners, the racehorse and hunter, from the nature of their work, being most liable to them. The most frequent sprains are those below the knee and hock, and to repair the injury is generally a very tedious process. Captain Horace Hayes, at a recent meeting of veterinarians held at Lincoln, as reported by the Live Stock Journal , recommended his audience in such cases to adopt bandaging with pressure, along with massage. The readiest method of applying uniform pressure was by bandaging with cotton wadding. Take,_ he said, two yards of unbleached cotton wadding, divide it down the centre, wrap the two pieces one over the other round the seat of injury, and then apply a strong cotton bandage, six yards long and three inches broad. It is also as well to cover the whole with an ordinary flannel bandage. This is the treatment necessary for all recent sprains. In the first instance the bandages may remain on for twenty-four hours, afterwards for twelve hours at a time. In the interval massage should be performed, working in the direction of the course of the lymphatics and the veins, and not against it, as is usually done. The cotton wadding, he said, was merely a means of obtaining evenly distributed pressure, which it effectually accomplished over all the surface inequalities of the limb.

According to a writer in Hoard's Dairyman , a recent experiment carried out by Messrs Van Dresser, of Cobleskill, New- York State, effectually proved that the richness of a cow’s milk can be materially affected by food. It was an unnatural kind of experiment, and is only mentioned because of its marked results. Four cows were first fed on a mixture of ensilage, wheat, bran, maize meal, cotton-seed oil, and their own skim milk, and a little over 231 b of their milk made lib of butter. Afterwards the diet was enriched by adding beef fat (or tallow, as it is called) to the mixture of meal and bran, beginning with Jib per cow daily, and increasing up to 2lb. At the end of five weeks the milk of the cows was again tested, and it was found that only 18Jib of milk were required to make lib of butter. The quantity of butter made in a week when the cows were fed on the first ration was 481 b 9oz, and it rose to 711 b 7oz when they were getting the second ration, the only difference being the addition of tallow. The plan of feeding cows on their own milk (after skimming it) and the fat of their own species is akin to cannibalism ; but cows have no sentiment against the practice, and if it is permanently healthy to feed them in the manner described, no objection need be taken upon fanciful grounds,

Something practical is likely to be done in regard to establishing an in dustry in Victoria for the production of the various vegetable oils (says the

Age). When the Minister of Agriculture was in Gippsland a, few weeks since, he found the people about Bairnsdale very much interested in the prospects of starting such an industry. They had established'the fact that seeds could be grown from which linseed, hemp, and other oils coulcl 6e obtained, but there was no machinery available for the treatment of the raw product. As the result of inquiries, Mr Taverner finds that Messrs It. Harper and Co. have imported machinery suitable for the extraction of pil from seeds, and they have promised that it shall be erected. Of course nothing can be done this season, but Gippsland farmers who are looking for means of varying their products should inform themselves on the subject of vegetable oil, with a view to cultivating the seed next season. A good local market exists for the oil, and the European trade is practically unlimited.

Since the Babeock milk testei became known in the dairy world quitp a number of improvements Have been added to it. The tester having been invented by a member of the Government scientific staff of the United States, it was never patented, consequently ingenious mechanics have been allowed a free hand in constructing the machine either, according to Dr Babgock’s plan

or with any additions which their in-

ventive genius might suggest. Mr C. C. Lance, of Euroa, Victoria, who is considered to be an authority on milk testing and payment by results, has just patented what he claims to be highly important

improvements in the Babcock tester. The driving wheel in the new machine „is placed on the lid, and works horizontally, it which position it is supposed to maintain its frictional connection with the spindle better than when it is hung vertically. When the required number of turns have been given the lid is lifted and the hot water applied with perfect ease. The lid is then simply shut down again and the revolving proceeded with. There is no danger of the lid going on too far, breaking the bottles, as in some machines. The speed is attained by friction from the inner flange of the wheel to a rubber ring in the top of the spindle.

A writer in the Field states that the rabbits in England are dying in .hundreds. ’ihey simply waste away and are skeletons in a few days. He is anxious for a remedy for the plague or means to prevent its recurrence. Something of the nature of this epidemic would be welcome in many districts of New Zealand.

A report prepared at the instance of the New South Wales Department of Agriculture places the total export of honey from Australasia in 1893 at 101,8711 b, exclusive of New South Wales export, which is not given. That colony, however, is the smallest exporter of the group, having sent away only 754:31b in 1892. Queensland stands third on the list with 18,6361 b, South Australia being first with 33,0971 b, and New Zealand second with 32,7121 b. * In 1892 Queensland exported 64,7841 b. Australia has suffered in this as in other lines of export from the unscrupulousness of British agents, who have not hesitated to attempt to choke the .trade in its infancy by spreading false reports as to , its inferiority, and selling the better qualities as American, Continental or British. The fact that colonial shippers have sent away some consignments that were so inferior in quality as to be

unsaleable here has also militated against Australian honey in the English market.