The Farm.

Otago Witness, Issue 1355, 17 November 1877, Page 18

The Farm.

CHATS WITH THE FARMERS.

A Visit to the Farm of Me, William

Sanderson, Lochend, Peninsula.

In 1849, the year of the great rush to California, Mr William Sanderson, who was brought up to farming in Edinburghshire, Scotland, made up his mind to emigrate to New Zealand. In co-partner-ship with another young man, ho purchased a town section (a quarter acre), a . suburban section (10 acres), and a rural section (50 acres), from the New Zealand. Land Company. His next' step was to' get married, and this ceremony having been satisfactorily performed, he Bailed two days afterwards for Otago. Upon their arrival, they sold their Dunedin section for £10. The suburban land they selected on the Peninsula, and the rural at the foot of Saddle HilL Mr Sanderson having dissolved with his partner, put stock upon his half of the land at Saddle Hill, and worked at day work for several years. When the Land Laws were altered, and the price. of land was reduced, about 20 years ago, he bought 100 acres of bush land at Lochend, one mile and a quarter from Anderson's Bay. , As tie cleared the land, he cultivated it in grain and root crops, laid it down in grass, and stocked it. The soil proved to be a very productive vegetable loam, from six to eight inches in depth, with a clay subsoil. In some places this loam was as deep as two feet. The whole of the hundred acres is now cleared of timber, except about 10 acres. Grain was grown until a few years ago, when the price went down ; wheat yielding 45 bushels to the acre, and oats 40 to 60 bushels.

Milk and butter are the products to which Mr Sanderson has of late years given most of his attention, and for these he has ■ always found a ready sale in Dunedin. Mrs Sanderson had had experience in the dairy at home, and the fresh butter which she sends to market always brings the highest price. There are on the farm 40 head of gentle cattle, including a fine three-quarter Ayrshire bull and 20 cows in milk, all carefully bred by Mr Sanderson. He has kept no record of the milk or butter produced by each cow per day, but all have been selected in reference to their milking qualities. ' The land produces splendid pasturage, being all sown down in English grasses, except about 35 acres, which grow oats, turnips, potatoes, and carrots, and the 10 acres in bush. The mixture sown for pasturage is composed of 81bsv cocksfoot, 31bs. of Timothy, 21ba. of red clover, and one bushel of rya-grass and ' Italian. At times the pasturage suffers in dry weather, and the inconvenience would be very great were it not for the cocksfoot, which,, with the Timothy clover.and rye-grass, makes good feed when the Italian die 3 out. In winter the cows have turnips, but they are fed to them only immediately before milking. Summer and winter-the cows are housed all night, not only-for the sake of handling in the morning, but on account of the manure. The latter, we would here remark,' is ao disposed of, before being taken to the field, that a great deal of the good is washed out of it. The milk intended for market is strained into cans, which hold about eight gallons each, and these' cans are stood for an hour in cold spring water, and then stirred up to mix the cream. The animal heat is in this way taken out, and the milk keeps much better. Cream, for those of the customers who require it, is taken off the morning's milk. Between 30 and 40 gallons of pure , milk are sent to regular customers daily. The byre is very comfortable, and more tidily kept than many that we have seen The floor is well paved, a fine gutter i 3 made of bricks placed on edge, and the stalls were well littered with clean straw. The dairy is, as it should be, some distance from the byre, and everything about it is scrupulously clean. The milk pans are not only thoroughly washed but well boiled. Water is brought down from a fine spring on the hill in iron pipes, and there is a good supply. At the end of the boiler-room out-dde, there is au iron tank, from .which a pipe leads to the boiler, and another pipe keeps a couple of wooden troughs outside cunstaat'y full. Mrs Sanderson is thoroughly acquainted with-the art of making fine butter. The portion of the milk that is not cooled down for market she sets in shallow blocktin pans for 24 hours, except in very warm weather, when it is not allowed to remain so long before being creamed. Tho churning ordinarily takes place once a week, but twice would, of course, be much better. She has a box churn which she brought out with her, and which she has ussd for 28 years. She also uses a barrel churn, which makes 80 pounds at a churning. When the butter is gathered, the milk is worked out with the hands, and it is taken in a tub to the water, where it is washed until there is no sign of milk in the water. It is then taken in a little water to the dairy, where it is | weighed and moulded into prints. Mr Sanderson has lately erected a fine conservatory, in which grape-vines are planted, and. in which he intends to have rare and tender plants. What struck us as remarkable, was the fact that even here in .New Zealand that singular delusion, the blue-glass theory of General A. J. Pleasanton, has found an adherent. Mr Sanderson's greenhouse is partially glazed with blue glass, which certainly gives it a showy appearance, if it has no wonderful effect upon the growth of the plants. It ia needless to say that the virtues claimed I for blue glass are in direct opposition to

the facts established by scientific men. It is undoubtedly true that seeds will germinate, and cuttings will root and plants will grow quicker under dark coloured than under light coloured glass, but that is due, not to the particular colour of the glass, but to an increased temperature. Darkened glass absorbs the sun's rays, and being thus heated, gives off its heat to the interior of the house, while the white glass reflects them. Brown glass would perhaps make a greenhouse lOdegs. hotter than white glass. The rays of the blue end of the spectrum, we learn from scientific men who have investigated the subject, are much less favourable to the decomposition of carbonic acid by plants than yellow rays, and either alone greatly inferior to all the rays together, or white light. We see it stated that "if blue light were best for plant growth, the Creator would have provided it in the beginning," and, looked at from any standpoint, we think there is a good deal in the statement.