JOTTINGS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1212, 24 May 1895, Page 5

JOTTINGS.

Consequent on tlie outbreak of pleuropneumonia on the steamer Perthshire, the Government of Now Zealand advises the Queensland Government that vessels from Queensland with cattle on board will be prohibited from calling- at New Zealand. A Bill to prevent the importation of hides and horns and other portions of the carcase likely to convey cattle diseases from unclean colonies has been passed in Sydney. Mr D. J. Nathan has been invited by the committee of the Bush Districts Farmers’ Club to be present at their next quarterly dinner, to be held on June 7th, and to x-ead on that occasion a paper on his scheme for improving the frozen meat industry. In an article in the Otago Witness on “ Weeds,” suggested by a talk with Mr T. W. Kirk, the Government Biologist, “ Dinornis,” says : —“ It is an open secret that before long a really workable Noxious Weeds Bill will have to be provided. Everyone who owns or occupies land ought to bo under obligation to tho State to repress the growth of weeds. And among preventive measures, Mr Kirk assured us nothing ought to be reckoned as of more fundamental importance than that of the purity of seeds.” Apropos to this subject we have been informed by Mr Kirk since his return to Wellington that while in the South one lot of 87 bags of rye was put up for sale, but did not find a purchaser. Arrangements were then made for the seed to be put through tho seed cleaning machinery, which resulted in its being reduced to 20 bags of pure seed. The eifect of sowing the 87 bags in their original state may be easily imagined. Mr J. D. Ritchie, Secretary of Agriculture, left for Auckland last week on Departmental business. Messrs Levin and Co. have received advices from Sydney to the effect that the prospects of a successful long-wool ram fair there are rather worse than they were in the early pax*t of April, when somewhat discouraging reports were sent from that market. Under tho circumstances Messi-s Levin and Co/s correspondents suggest that intending shippers to Sydney would do well to wait for a more promising year.

A correspondent of a French farming paper gives the following directions for rapidly fattening swine. He says : “Take a handful of harm and dissolve it in a glass containing warm water, adding some handfuls of bran or coar. e flour, as well as a certain quantity of cooked or crushed apples. After carefully mixing the whole leave it for a night. The next day, as soon as fermentation has taken place, add some handfuls of this mixture to the ordinary rations of the pig. Care should be taken to leave a small quantity of the mixture to be used instead of the barm, to which add warm water, flour and some potatoes. The next day proceed as before, and at the end of six, or even three, months the pigs thus fed will have arrived at a fat state with the quantity of nourishment consumed relatively small.”

The Hastings correspondent of the Napier Telegraph says :—The heavy rains lately have done a great injury to potato growers here, as the tubers cannot be bagged wet, and it is more difficult to fork them up. Speaking to a large grower, he told me that although the crops were good, the prices were unremunerative. In lamenting this fact, he bitterly censures

the want of principle and forethought of growers and exporters in previous years. He says that they have completely ruined the Australian market for us, by mixing all sorts and qualities of potatoes in the same sacks, and nob minding a few clods or stones. This practice has practically tabooed JNew Zealand potatoes.

A correspondent of the Auckland Weekly JVews makes the following suggestion :—“I should veL-y much like to see a trial made of sending the frozen mutton, etc., to Britain packed in frozen oatmeal. I remember one of the Dunedin butchers used to pack legs cf mutton in meal for select customers for ten days before use, which made it more tender and greatly improved the flavour; and before the day of steam and ice, the game used to be sent from the Highlands to London packed in meal, and it kept good for weeks. In Scotland it was usual to half-cook the pig’s puddings and pack them in the meal bin, where they kept good for months until required. Could not sausages be made here and sent in that way ? They would sell readily, and would take up .little room' and the meal would be in demand for pigs and fowl food, etc. I hope someone maygive this a trial, and establish a good and paying trade.

Mr J. A. Gunn, of Yalgogrin station, gives the following results of vaccination for anthrax carried out in Victoria and New South Wales in the season 1894-95. Considerably more than half-a-million sheep were treated, and the success was absolute in 500,000, while there were failures more or less in the protection given to under 40,000, chiefly in dis:ricts remote from the laboratory, and where the time occupied in conveying the vaccine to the work was very great. The value of the work done to tho country in general may bo gauged from the fact that, placing the minimum loss on the half-million successfully vaccinated sheep at the low rate (for anthrax-infected flocks) of 20 per cent, the loss without vaccination would have been 100,000, whereas with vaccination it is practically nil.

“Thistledown” states “ Dairrmen and every advanced stockman* admits that nothing that can be grown* on the farm is more valuable in the' winter months than a patch of green, winter fodder. A few acres of Capebarley or rye—a mixture is good—if sowd about this period of the year will be ready to cut about midwinter, and will keep the stock progressing right along through a period of scarcity till the spring grass comes at almost no expense. It has often surprised me that green winter crops of this kind are not more common. The dairyman who engages in a milk business is obliged to maintain a regular supply all through the winter, and he can only do this by the aid of green crops or by keeping an extra number of cows. Thelatter method is the more expensive, sohe generally has recourse to the plan, of feeding his cows something extra.. But when cattle are fed heavily and' chiefly on dry provender, as hay orgrain, the results are often unsatisfactory. Some green food is necessary as well to qualify the dry ration, and! the cows will not only yield moro milk: by having some regularly, but they will graze much better the following' summer. It is a fact that, ■when too much grain is. fei in the-

winter season the stock tlo not thrive so well afterwards on the grass. In ntany respects green barley is more valuable than ensilage—although the latter is by no nieans a bad thing iri its ■^ay—and farmers who desire to keep itp the winter milk supply should lose no time in sowing. The land devoted to this purpose should be well manured and the crop will spring up at a marvellous rate and afford perhaps two or three heavy cuttings in the season. Again, where pigs are kept and possibly being fattened on wheat or corn of some kind, a patch of winter barley to run them out on will be found of great value in 'keeping them healthy and thrifty. An exclusive wheat diet is liable to cause costiveness in the bowels, which is tliß forerunner of fever and other ills following in its train.”

A writer in the Australasian Pastoralisls' Review believes that no patent drenching funnel is as effective or handy as the ordinary Worcestershire sauce or olive oil bottle, and no allround mixture can beat the old formula—lib 6oz of arsenic and 3|-lb of washing soda, boiled slowly in eleven gallons of water until the arsenic i.s dissolved, and then watered to make it up to forty-five gallons for weaners, and fifty-eight gallons for lambs. The mixture is poured into a cask, at which sits a man with a plank before him. “ On the plank are arranged twenty or thirty bottles, which he fills with a measured dipper and a funnel. The catchers take their .bottles, snap a sheep, have it on its rump in a second, one arm round the neck, bottle inserted sideways in the jaw, and down goes the dose, without waste or stoppage. One man filling, four catchers 3000 sheep per diem. No dragging the sheep about, up to the ‘ bar,’ amidst dtist and profanity. Each man has his lump of raddle and hjs bottle ; and, as soon as the hand gets accustomed to it, the work goes on rapidly and quietly. They should be kept in the yard all night after being drenched, and also dosed on an empty belly.”

The annual report of the potatogrowing experiments conducted by the Technical Education 'Committee of the Wiltshire CouDty Council has lately been published by Messrs Eyre and Spottiswoode. These.experiments bring out, in a very prominent way, the advantages of using nitrate of soda in the growing of the potato crop. The land which got phosphate of potash only showed a. lower yield per acre than the land which got no manure at all ; whereas the land which got a dressing of 4cwt of superphosphate, 4cwt of kainit, and 2cwt of nitrate, showed a yield of two tons 5 per acre more than the unmanufed land; and the land which got the same amount of superphosphate and kainit, with 4cwt of nitrate at two separate applications, showed a yield of nearly five tons per acre over the unmanured land.

The report lately in circulation respecting the advances offered by the Dominion Government in order to stimulate the export of fresh butter to England is now confirmed. The Dairy Commissioner at Ottawa has “ been authorised to pay advances at the rate of 20 cents per pound (lOd per pound) on creamery butter of finest quality, made between January Ist, 1895, and March 30th, 1895, when put up in neat clean packages, and delivered to the order of the Dairy Commissioner at Montreal. The freight charges .to Montreal will be paid by the Dairy Commissioner.” Hie object of the “advances” is to enable managers of creameries to make payment to the farmers who supply the milk or cream, but as nothing is said as to the repayment of the advances the impression Reems to be generally entertained that the so-called “advances” are actually a bounty, called by another name, equivalent to more than two' thirds of the present price of English-made butter.

For a long while past a great deal of discontent has been manifested in connection with the dairy factories and the supply of mil e. Neither the receiver of the milk nor the supplier thereof appear to be satisfied. The low prices in the British markets have upset all previous calculations as to the expected prices for butter sent from the colonies for sale in the British markets. Mr Edward Alexander, writing from Taurangaruni, Waiuku, to the Auckland Weekly News on this subject, says : —“ As it may be interesting to some of your readers to know the price that is being paid for milk in one of the largest dairy centres in Ireland, I enclose an

I advertisement cut from the Limerifek Chronicle of Bth December, 1894. The advertisement is as follows, which we publish for public information :— ‘ New milk wanted;—Wanted, by the Irish National Condensed - milk Company (Limited), delivered at their factory, Garryowen, new milk of best quality, for which tho following prices will be paid } November, 1894, 7d per gallon ; December, 1894, 8d per gallon ; January, 1895, 8d per gallon ; February, 1895, BJd per gallon —William Dwyeb, Managing Director.’ ” The prices are certainly very different from those obtaining in the Australasian colonies, but so are the conditions as to carriage to market, means of utilising the skimmed milk, etc., in Britain as ermpared with what prevails here. The heavy charge of freight for conveyance in a cool chamber such a long distance, and other conditions prevailing lieie, put colonial producers at a great disadvantage in many respects as compared with what the British or Irish farmer has to contend with. However, the advertisement will form tho basis of future discussion on this interesting topic.