GLEANINGS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1581, 4 March 1882, Page 7

GLEANINGS.

Pigs are able to consume far more food in proportion to their weight than either sheep or oxen.

The general opinion is that ants are enemies to fruit-trees, but it has long since been proved that they destroy larvae and chrysalides, and they do not destroy the fresh fruit. The annual cheese consumption of England is about 201b per head, and of the United States about s£lb ; in the colonies the annual consumption per head is much smaller. When the paint gets off the rims of the best waggon wheels they lose moisture and shrink very fast in dry weather. The quickest preventive is a moißluie of pekoleum and linked oil applied to the felines with a brush, several times over, whoro they »re <lry> Animals when uoufined s«id supplied with fat'euiug feed al>v»?H Jxicrea«o largely ia weight during Vw iirut few weeka, after which

the rate o? increase tHminlafaai to a considerable extent. . „ For greasing carriage wheels uea oasior-ou, but only a few drops at a time to each axle ; for farm waggona use the common wcle-grease. In San Bernardino Valley each year »s many fruit-trees aru planted as there were in the ground the preoeding year. Green food in a tight silo and in the stomach of a cow is closely analagous iv respect to couditian and changes. The paunch of a ruminant is a silo iv miniature, or, if you please, a well-built silo ia a huge rumen for che reception and preparation of food for digestiou. Mr Lockwood, of Lancofield Park, Victoria, sxpeotH to harvest from a 20-acre field of barley from 80 to 100 bushels to the acre. This field had been in fallow the previous year and worked during the spell seventeen limes. The forester of the B^is de Boulogne, M. Pinsot, aayß that dynamite can be ustd witu good effect in uprooting and dividing the stumps of large trees, but he states that it is not well to employ it to fell trees which are to ba used as timber, as the shock shatters the I fibres of the wood. m A Gilroy (IT. S.) paper soya :— Davidson, the dairyman, finds ensilage fe<-d a failoro. Hia cowa have materially falleu off ia n^li aud milk Blnoo their sthy at Green's ranch, 9»u Benito county. All i.he utouk will bo brought back to the home ranch at once. One acre well cultivated md well fertilised will yield more profit than four acres half cal tivated. Farmers should not forget that four auoh acre* have to be ploughed, harrowed, | colcivated, and reaped, with about four timeß the travel and labour, for about the same crop ( as could be produced on an acre of well-tilled 1 land. In Scotland the shorthorn bull is belug largely used upon Ayrshire cows to produce dairy animals, aud the result is said to be very encouraging. The flow of milk ia not lessened, while the calves are of much better quality, and bring more from both the butcher and feeder. In a speech to his constituents at Salford, England, Mr Arnold referred to tbe import trade from Ireland to his borough. Of Irish cattle alone, he said, they had received in 22 weeks the value of £1 250,000 ; and he could state ou the best authority th»t Irish dealere were obtaining more than £4,000,000 a year for sheep and oattle in the Saliurd market. A thin-akin aed lime, shaped like a pear and of prodigious size, is the product of the orchard hi Swett »nd Noroross, at Riverside. The limt is cine iucaes in circumference one way and eleven and a half inobe« tbe other way, and balances at eight ouuees on the scales. A specimen sent to the Agricultural Department at Washington could not be cUsuified, and this abnormal growth is yet nameleHS. The lasl 20 years have witnessed a great change iv the relations between science and agriculture. The great improvements in cultivation and farm management are the results of sound reasoning combined with arithmetical calculation, in regard to work on the farm, which is rapidly taking the place of the oldtime ' rule of thumb ' ho closely adhered to by the unprogressive. In New South Wales the ' oast ' of fat cattle for the year 1881 Is estimated by Mr Alexander Bruce at 260,000, The Bliud stock introduced into the colony during 1880 numbered 1218 head. Of these 1055 were shorthorns, 155 Herefords, 4 D^vons, aud 4 dairy cattle ; 403 were from Victoria, New South Wales, and New Zealand colonies, and 10 from England. Two farms belonging to the Corporation of Berwick have been relet at a startling reduction of rent. The first, rented up to the pre seat time at £440, is r<.<let at £215 ; tho socond has gone down from £430 to £235. A large farm near Alnwiclr, )atoly rented at £700 a year, now lets at £400. Potato-growing lisa been the object of a curious experiment just completed iv England. A pound of early potatoes was takea and allowed to spirt freely. From each potato a spirt was broken, aud potatoes and spirts were theu planted in separate rows. Both grew veil, and the following is the result of the experiment :— From the spirts, which weighed in all half aa ounce, 51b siz of sound potatoes have been obt»ln"d, and from the pound of potatoes 51b 4 z. showing a slight balance in favour of the spirts. The spirt potatoes were the more regular in shape, the earlier in growth, and the firmer iv substance. Dr J. R. Nichols, of tbe Boston Journal of Chemistry, Rives the following process for reducing bones:— Break 1001b of boneß into small fragments, and pack them in a tight cask or box with 1001b of good wood aßhes, whioh have been previously mixed with 251b of dry water-slaked lime and 121b of powdered sal soda. Twenty gallons of water will saturate the mass, and more may be added as required. In two or three week* the bones will be soft enough to turn out on the barufbor and be mixed with two bushels of goodsoil. Agricultural education in Bavaria is interestingly discusHed by Prof R. B. Warder in the Quarterly Journal of the American Agricultural Association. Even in the kindergartens the child's attention is directed towards Nature, and in the common schools of the country dis. tricts orchard aud garden culture is a part of the course of Btudy. It is common to provide teachers with dwellings with a garden con. neoted. After the first ploughing and planting, the work must be performed by teachers and elder pupils, and half the crop belongs to the teacher as compensation for his labour. A Mr Hargrave calls the attention of the London Times to the following case of the resurrection of a tree :— A few years back a great elm was blown down, with a large ball of earth at its roots, on the property of Mr Smyth, the rector of Little Houghton. Men were set to work to remove it ; but when they had sawn off the great limbs, to their astonishment and almost terror, the trunk roue up of its own accord and went back to its original place, and there it stands to this day. It is throwing out a fresh head, and is pointed out as a curious case of resurrection.