JOTTINGS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1197, 8 February 1895, Page 6

JOTTINGS.

The annual sheep returns (up to April 1894) show an increase in Wairarapa South of 30,580, in Wairarapa North of 58,563, and in Pahiatua of 28,176. In Wairarapa North there are 463 owners who are classified as follow : —Under five hundred sheep, 247 owners; under a thousand sheep, 85 .owners; under two thousand sheep, 61 owners ; under five thousand sheep, 40 owners ; under ten thousand sheep, 15 owners ; under twenty thousand sheep, 10 owners; over twenty thou .and sheep, 5 owners. Brancepeth station tops the list with 72,585 sheep. The South Australian harvest shows most disastrous results. The yield will, it is asserted, not exceed five 1 tisbels ifh acre - A nice look out indeed for farmers and millers. The oat crrp in the Awahuri is said j to be turning out fairly well. The j straw is rather short, but there will be very little shortage. The highest yield } mentioned is 40 bushels to the acre. Sunflower cultivation is progresing down South. A farmer near Terauka, Canterbury, has five acres of sunflowers, which are said to be looking splendid. In Otago also several settlers have utilised sunflower seed supplied by Messrs Kempthorne, Prosser and Co. It will be interesting to learn the exact financial results of the experiments.

Linseed growing on a large scale is abou t to be tried by several farmers in the Taieri district, Otago.

Was =,it really cancer? A West Coast paper states that a cow at Totara suffering from cancer has been destroyed by order of the Stock Department, and that the inspector had also given instructions for the destruction of a cow at Livingstone which is similarly affected. Bub according to Mr Gilrutli there is no such thing in the colony as cancer in cows. Who is right ?

The noxious weed familiarly called the “ Wild Turnip ” is almost as plentiful as the crop in spnoie parts of the Jacob’s River Valley.—- Western Star.

A southern paper estimates that owing to the fall in the price of wool, the staple product of the colony, the net income must fall L 750,000 sterling. Surely this is overstating the case.

A contemporary states that a little soft soap used with hellebore for spraying trees infected with the leech blight makes the cure more effectual.

Mr Donald Fraser, the well-known sheep farmer, writes as follows to the Marton Mercury '.— Thinking... that it might be of some use to your readers I venture to send you the following : It is not generally known that there are more yellow sheep, when slaughtered, among Romneys than Lincolns. To satisfy myself I wrote to Mr D. Sladden, secretary of the Wellington Meat Export Company for the last nine or ten years, during which time about 2,00P,000 sheep have passed through the work's. To make it plain, what is meant by yellow sheep—They are, when slaughtered, yellow although in good condition, but owing to the colour they are condemned as freezers, and consequently worth, only one ha f. The following is Mr Sladden’s rep’y with respect to yellow sheep:—“l should think we get 3 to 1 out of Romneys as compared with Lincolns. I should say that most of the yellow sheep we get are Romneys or have Romney blood in them. More than that, the proportion of the yellow sheep in the Romneys lias increased in the last 5 or 6 years, and in my opinion the sheep are yellower. We get a few yellow sheep out of the Lincolns but generally not so dark as the Romneys. G. Sladden.” It would be of importance to sheepfarmers if this could be accounted for.

The potato crop up Woodville way is reported to be badly damaged. Some assert the cause is a fungoid disease, others that grubs have destroyed the vines.

A writer in the Timaru Herald sends the following remedy for the bot fly to that paper : “ I should like to call the attention of horse-keepers to a simple remedy that went the round of the agricultural papers last year, namely, give the horse a peck of raw potatoes twice a week. Should the horse be unable to eat, grate the potatoes up and give them as a drench. |lt is at least inexpensive and worth a trial. I may as well add that I am not a

seller of potatoes.” Another paper, the Feilding Star , says that the following is given as an effectual mode of treatment for bots in a horse: —Give it a bottle of new milk, with a couple of tablespoonfuls of soot, three or four times, and a couple of feeds a day of scalded pollard with salt, for a fort night, and the grubs come away by the score. The treatment is very simple, but the pollard must be scalded, and the salt should be increased as much as the horse will eat. Scalded pollard is one of the most nourishing of foods for the sick animal that will eat it.

As showing the rapidity with which the Bathurst burr spreads when it once gets a start in a district, a Carnarvon farmer informs us J.Advocate ) that five or six years ago his attention was called to a patch of some strange weed growing at that time on a farm at Parawanui. By enquiry it was ascertained that the weed was the Bathurst burr. Although there were three or four farmers discussing the rather unsightly weed, none of them thought of pulling it up, and now it practically covers the district. Hence the necessity for dealing with it promptly when it appears in a district.

An English correspondent writes : A Royal commission has just been appointed to inquire into the effect produced upon human health by the eating of the flesh of tuberculosed animals, and in the next half-dozen years we may have an authoritative expression of opinion upon this matter, which is a good deal discussed nowadays. The present system of forcing animals by feeding them on roots, brewers’ grains, cake, &c., is stated to have a considerable effect in the production of this disease, as well as rendering the flesh less nutritious and wanting in flavour, as compared with grazing on pasture land. The public know this, hence the high price always commanded by Highland, Welsh, acd Dartmoor meat. Tuberculosis is rapidly increasing in Ayrshire and Wigtownshire, and as many losses of cattle result, the farmers are clamouring for the inclusion of the disease in the contagious list. Their wish is, of course, to get compensation, but the butchers who have had to take the risk of losing any meat affected with tuberculosis for the last ten years by confiscation hay© net

enjoyed any compensation. It is maintained in many quarters that the eating of tuberculosed meat causes consumption in the eater, which is a good reason for having your meat well cooked, so as to destroy the germ. The common English way is to haveroasb beef half raw, with the blood running out of the joint when carved.

The London correspondent of the Australasian Pastoralists' Review writes as follows:—The prospects of the immediate future of the wool market are uny thing but rosy. Everywhere consumers and dealers are fully stocked with raw mateiial or the semi-manu-factured article, and of these stocks the value has shrunk considerably. Thus the hands of many are tied, for they have exhausted their financial resources, and the screw is being put upon them to reduce their indebtedness to the banks and others. Hence the sudden break in prices and the widespread fear that forced realisations will lead to financial embarrassments—that failures will sooner or later occur. Several have already taken place in France—not, however, of any great magnitude—and yesterday a large one in the manufacturing branch occurred in Italy. In vie wof these occurrences, the feeling at present is that things must yet become worse ere they can begin to improve. In support of this pessimistic theory the large quantity held over is pointed to, which, together with heavy supplies coming to London early next year, and the simultaneous arrival in Europe of direct purchases, will combine to depress a market already overstocked.

Coleman’s Rural World (U.S.A.) writing of “ the sheep situation ”in the United States, says that 11 in spite of the" high prices for cattle and hogs, sheep remain at the low-water mark and the near future shows no signs of improvement. The country seems to be full of common and inferior sheep which owners are anxious enough to unload and receipts are kept heavy enough to hold prices down. Nearly all the sheep coming now have to be taken by local slaughterers, for there is no Eastern demand and none from feeders. This, of course, robs the market of much of the competition which prevails when there is a full quota of buyers, (39 thftt with yei/ moderate re-

ceipts there is little hope of higher prices. The thing that will help the situation most is to get rid of the scrubby stuff which every farmer seems to have in abundance and stop raising ■sheep until the demand catches up with the supply.”

Professor McFadyean, at the opening of the session of the Royal Veterinary College, London, on 3rd October, stated that by the discovery of mallein it was now within the power of any horseowner to free his stud from glanders, and keep it free, without having to kill a single animal save those actually glandered. With the aid of Koch's tuberculin also, the same result might be achieved in the case of tuberculosis, concerning which they now had information tending to show that it was not, as commonly supposed, ordinary congenital, but was spread by contagion, which the certain diagnosis furnished by the tuberculin test supplied a means of controlling.

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 rapidly and at less cost when allowed a little bran and a few roots daily than when confined to a diet of corn.

The prospec ;s of a remunerative export business in rabbits and hares (says the Age), which have hitherto been an expensive pest to the country, are of the most hopelul character, and the packing room devoted to this branch of industry is one of the busiest at the freezing works. The departmental directions in this connection are: —Hares and rabbits must be trapped or snared and killed. Rabbits must be gutted before being forwarded, but hares must not. The carcases in both cases must be perfectly clean and in good condition. The charge for packing and freezing rabbits and hares is Id and 2d per pair respectively. A special crate, uniform in size, so as to save freight, has been prepared by the department, as in the case of poultry, each crate h<?lding 2Q 9f rabbity

or 10 pairs of hares. By the use of this crate, in which the frozen carcases are suspended from bars in pairs, the freight has been brought down to 4£d each for rabbits and 9d for hares, and the wisdom of selecting only large and fat carcases for shipment, together witli the improved system of suspended in- : stead of horizontal packing, is approved in the prices obtained in the London market. v

According to the Patea paper a peculiar sight was witnessed on the main road by the Momohaki station recently, when a “ regiment '* of shell snails, eight chains long and seven feet wide, were marching along the grass side-track southward. The circumstance attracted considerable attention, sufficiently so to induce settlers to measure the area covered.

At the annual ram fair under the auspices of the Manawatu and West Coast Agricultural Association, the entries were more numerous than in any previous year. In 1893 the number was 1024; in 1894, 1144; and this year 1273. ’This year some very fine animals were offered. The principal increase was in Romneys. Though the demand was not so large as was expected, competition for really class sheep was keen. The reserves in: almost all cases, however, were higher than the purchasers cared to bid, and a very large number were passed in. In some cases there were no bids whatever. The opinion was expiessed, says the Standard, that the fair was held too early in the season. The milk suppliers at Campelltown, Rangitikei, have established a co-operative company.