JOTTINGS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1289, 12 November 1896, Page 6

JOTTINGS.

A trial of a new branding machine by Mr W. H. Potter took place at Bray brook, Victoria, lately. Mr Potter claims to have invented a cheap, effective and rapid method of branding, without damage to the hide. The machine, which is adaptable to cattle and horses, is simple in mechanism, weighs only 41b, and will work for five hours without being recharged with the small quantity of kerosene which is the only fuel requisite for keeping the brands heated* The dies or brands are suspended over two small heaters, and by a simple adaptation of the lever principle the brands, or merely I one if required, are pressed on the cheek or neck of the animal, as the case may be, by a single squeeze of the hand, and on being withdrawn the brand returns to the stove, and is thus kept at a uniform boat, the great desideratum in branding. It is claimed that the double brand does away with the cruelty of ear-marking sheep, as I one cheek can be branded with the station | brand, and the other cheek with a distinctive brand, while a third or dye-brand can be applied to the bridge of the nose at the same timo. Mr Potter has left for England to complete arrangements in connection with Uie invention.

! Details of results of the first use of the American dehorning clipper in Australia are given in the Australasian. About twelve months ago Mr William Leonard imported from America a few dehorning machines for the purpose of using them on • his cattle station in Northern Queensland. Since then he has dehorned a large number of cattle, and the way the machines have done the work has given the greatest satisfaction. In dehorning young beasts it was found that frequently a snail horn of considerable size would grow on the site of the old horn, and to prevent this caustic potash has been employed. The potash is applied in the following manner :—A very strong solution of caustic potash is made in water, and as the horn is sliced off by the dehorner the solution is applied to the root of the horn by means of a small piece of cloth tied on the end of a stick. Some hundreds of beasts have been operated on in this way within the last twelve months, aud the result is very satisfactory, not a trace of snail horn having been formed. In the milking herd Mr Leonard's manager has adopted the plan of rubbing the horn buds of the calves directly they appear with caustic potash, which effectually prevents the growth of the horn. Mr Leonard is bo pleased with the results of dehorning in his herd that he intends keeping up the practice in the future.

At the luncheon which preceded the sale of shorthorns at Bray ton (England), Sir Wilfrid Lawson delivered a characteristic speech. He said that the principle upon which the shorthorn breeder acted was that a good animal ate no more than a bad one, just the same as a good man ate no more than a bad man, and drank less. He believed that the days of the worship of pedigree in the shorthorn world were passing away. They would never again see a cow which had been bought a short time previously for £IOOO sold in the ring again for 1000 guineas, and her calf for 2COO guineas. Why could such prices not now be obtained ? It was not that the cattle had got worse, but men had got wiser. He did not want them to despise pedigree, because pedigree was the pedestal of the British Constitution. When a man was well bor.i ho could do what he liked. He went to the House of Lords. He might be a fool, but if he was a born fool it was all right. Surely, then, if pedigree was so important in men, it must be rather important in beasts. He hoped, notwithstanding the decline in the worship of pedigree to sorae extent, that there was a future for shorthorns. The country was improving. They had had Li Hung Chang here, and he had told them he was anxious to make railways if we would do something for him ; buD we did not seem inclined, and wanted some guarantee. He should not be called Li Hung Chang, but '• Sly" Hung Chang. He thought they might be cheerful. They had got a lot of things done, they had the railways in China, the light railways in i England, and the starving landlords had | got half of the rates paid for them. If j there was not a good sale, he would apply I for the other half of the rates to bo taken I off.

A new potato digger has been tried in Victoria, with results that are said to be satisfactory. The share is 18in in width, and goes underneath the drill of potatoes, taking the earth and potatoes up an elevator to a revolving drum. The potatoes go out at the back of the drum perfectly clean, and are deposited in rows after the machine.

Tools have been found in the ruins of Pompeii which were supposed to have been invented only in modern times. In the same way new discoveries are made which research often proves to have been made more than, once before. A recent instance is the system of planting potatoes. Not long ago reports were published of experiments by which it was proved that a far heavier crop was obtained from planting medium-sized whole potatoes than from planting cut potatoes. The matter attracted much attention, and the results were published all over the world as something entirely new. A correspondent, writing to the Gardeners' Journal about the year 1830, gives exactly the same results as those obtained at the French

Agricultural College in an experiment he made in planting whole and cut potatoes as far back as 1828 —just sixty-eight years ago.

Abortion is one of the worst cattle troubles the stock owner is beset With-, and many remedies given in the books do not seem to come out Well ih practice. The results of some recent practical experiments by Mr Alfred Rowntree, of Leeds-, have the appearance of being effective. Mr Rowntree had a serious outbreak of abortion in a herd of 25 shorthorn cows, which began in the summer of 1894 with two cows slipping their calves, but as anyone is liable to odd cases he thought nothing of it Until the beginning of autumn-, when he had several following in close succession, and this continued with more or less frequency until the autumn of 1800, When about 20 aborted. He then concluded that the disease was an infectious one, and treated it accordingly. As soon as a cow showed signs of aborting she was isolated, and the men who tended the other cattle did nothing with her until all the, others were finished so as to avoid spreading the infection ; then, immediately after the foetus had been expelled he syringed the uterus with |- gallon warm solution of bichloride of mercury (1000th strength), and repeated this again at the end of 21 days, when the cow was allowed to return to the others. The place where the cow had been shut up was thoroughly dusted with powder disinfectant, and all the cows which had come in contact with her before aborting sponged with either a solution of bichloride of mercury or of carbolic icid. All the cowshed floors were daily sprinkled with a small quantity of disinfecting powder for about six months. The bull's sheath was also syringed with one or two of the above solutions. During the last nine months he has only had two abortions, the remainder of the cows—over 20 of them—having produced fully developed calves, though several of these had slipped last summer. "As I have changed ray bull," Mr Rowntree writes, "it might be argued that he was the cause, but as my cows slipped equally badly to another one, and as severalpersons had their cows served by my bull, and have made no complaint, I think he may be considered free from blame. I shall be much interested if others who are suffering from thi3 most disastrous complaint will try my experiment, thoroughly carrying it out, and publish the results."

Mr J. R. Dodge, late Statistician to the American Department of Agriculture, estimates that the number of sheep in the United States has fallen off by 15,000,000, or 30 per cent., in three years. This he attributes to lowness of prices, which has induced many farmers to get rid of their flocks. He gives the receipts and shipments of the four principal markets in which sheep are slaughtered for 1889 and 1895, to show how great the increase of slaughtering has been. In 1889 2,721,239 were received aud 1,244,791 were shipped ; while in 1895 the figures were 4,990,745 and 994,848. Deducting shipments, these figures show an increase in the distribution of mutton in various forms amounting to nearly 300 per cent. Allowing for all other markets, he thus accounts for the great decrease in the flocks of the country.

Mr John Cooke, of Melbourne, now in London, writes in the British Australasian that " while the quality of Plate mutton had greatly improved of late years, evidencing careful selection and supervision, the character and condition of a great many recent imports of Australian mutton had displayed the very opposite characteristics. I will yield to no man in the conviction that Australia can and does to-day produce better mutton than Argentina, and will, with skilful handling and rigid selection, in a few years run New Zealand a very close race ; but the humiliating fact remains that large numbers of frozen carcases have been despatched from Australia during She past 18 or 20 months, chiefly from the port of Sydney, that were a disgrace to their colonial origin. These miserable carcases, healthy enough, but with very little flesh on their bones, many of which I have been positively ashxmed to see in Smithfield and elsewhere, have lowered the general standard of Australian frozen meat, and have created such an impression of inferiority as will take a long peiiod of rigorous selection to erase. It is no use trying to disguise the fact that Argentina is now, and is still going to be, Australia's greatest rival in the frozen meat trade, and the sooner our exporters grasp the situation and take a leaf out of their South American brethren's book the sooner will they be in a position to compete triumphantly with them, and retain an adequate share of a vastly expanding industry."

For dehorning cattle, the Texas station finds the clippers best for cattle under three years old, but" for older cattle the saw is best. A piece of common concentrated lye dipped in water and rubbed on the bottom is as good as any of the chemicals sold for dehorning calves.

A German authority says that the stubble and roots of an acre of a heavy crop of red clover weigh over three tons, and contain over 180 pounds of potash. This nitrogen was gathered from the air, and the phosphoric acid and potash were brought up from the subsoil, where ordinary plants could not haye reached it.