FARM NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 1762, 29 August 1885, Page 7

FARM NOTES.

' A disease resembling fluke is reported a haying made its appearance among the rabbits in "the forest country south of Camperdown, '"Victoria. An employe of a landowner in the Elingamite district noticed that tEe animals were dying in hundreds, although Vo poisoned grain had .been laid for them. He dissected some rabbits, arid discovered on the. liver symptoms'resembling fluke in sheep. ' • ,The Melbourne Weekly Times says that foxes promise- to 'become ajfar greater nuisance than rabbits in Victoria. Battues 'are frequently organised, and, the .public being invited to cooperate, a great slaughter sometimes ensues. As,many as seventy have been destroyed in one day on an occasion of this kind. This season, gince the, lambing" set in, nofewer than thirtyeight have been destroyed by poisoning alone, all dead lambs being, baited with strychnine. A few miles' north of Gordons,' we learn from our correspondent that a farmer named Thomas Jones has just lost thirty-six lambs by the foxes, \*fhile other large graziers .have also lost heavily. Poultry yards, too, have been swept clean in a dingle night. - '

.. The Australasian says : — The following information still further corroborates all that Mr Quthbert Fetherstonhaugh has advanced 'in our columns regarding the utility of wire netting as a means of dealing with the rabbit pest : — •f The valuable., property of Castlerock, Southland, New Zealand, owned by the Hon. Mathew Holmes, and consisting of 70,000 acres of land, on which, previous to its occupation by the rabbits, 50,000 sheep were depasturedj became in five years so overrun by rabbits that the sheep had to be reduced to 20,000,' while the loss from rabbits was estimated at £5000 a year. In one year 300,000 rabbit skins were taken. This property being enclosed on three sides by running rivers, a wire-netting fence was run along the back boundary from river to river, while at the game time phosphorised oats were liberally administered to , the rabbits. The influx being effectually checked by the fence, the rabbits quickly.decreased, the property being also subdivided to facilitate proceedings. When the rabbits ceased to take the oats other methods, of destruction were used, bisulphide of carbon being found most efficacious. The result is that the property. no,w carries ifcs usual number of Sheep, ,and eight men are found sufficient to feeep^e rabbjts do.wji. Tb,e fence has proved

a thorough success. Ferrets have been found very useful, and are being bred on the property, it being considered that shortly the ferrets — the natural enemy of the rabbit — will be by themselves enough to keep the rabbits down."

Mr B. S. Harley makes the following suggestion in the Canterbury Times :— As the sowing season for grasses is now close at hand, I would suggest to your agricultural readers a crop for which there is every prospect of a good market in the future. I alludo to the grass- Meadow Fescue (Festuca pratensit). There is a ready sale locally for the seed at 60s per cwt, and an inquiry from Home has lately sprung up for large quantities at prices a shade under this figure. Any farmer with a piece of clean land could not go wrong in sowing down this seed for. future cropping, since, with a yield of only ten bushels, there would be a gross return of £5 per acre, and it is a crop which could be harvested by. a stripper. Moreover, 'it is relished by all kinds of stock, and makes capital hay. A mixture with other grasses yielding a similar seed — such as rye and cocksfoot — would, of course, have to be avoided ; but the Festuca prate/wit might be sown with Timothy and clovers without detriment to its own purity, as in the process of dressing these seeds would be eliminated. Carter describes this plant as follows : — " Meadow Fescue is one of the most valuable grasses we have, and is used in the composition of all good mixtures. Remarkably early and nutritious, abundantly productive, always succulent and tender, it may be described as probably one of the very best natural grasses in, existence. Perennial, usually flowering about the end of June, or the beginning of July." I may add that it flourishes best in damp land, but thrives well on any soil, except light and dry.

The Hauroto took 22 head of cat'le and 77 horses from Oamaru. Messrs A. and J. Macfarlane shipped six Alderney cows and three Ayrshires.

The freezing works of the New Zealand Frozen Meat and Storage Company (writes our Auckland correspondent) are now in full swing, and they will export within the next three months nearly three-quarters of a million pounds of frozen meat. As to the compressed corned beef, from 10,000 to 20,000 pounds is tinned daily, and the company are unable to keep pace with the de T m'and for it. A new departure has been made in the commencement 1 of extensive operations in preparing bacon on the most approved methods for every known market. Mr Dufticld, a Canterbury expert-, has been brought up to Auckland to undertake the management of this branch . The pigs are being raised and killed on the great Matamata estate of Mr J. C. Firth. They arc fed on clover, milk, and mill stuff. The bacon appears to be of splendid quality, and it is hoped that this new movement will be the beginning of a great ham and bacon export. There has been some dissatisfaction, expressed by the Waikato farmers at the company bringing . prime joints from "Waikato and disposing of them in the Auckland market;, thus keeping down the price of Auckland" stock. The chairman of the company has pointed out in reply that only 10 per cent, of the meat produced at Waitara has come to Auckland in this form ; that it ->was necessitated by a glut of sto"ek at the Waitara works through the delay in opening the factory there, and that but for this measure being taken the whole of the animals slaughtered at Waitara would have been shipped to Auckland. The real fact of the matter is that a number of the middle and small-class farmers imagined that the starting of the freezing works would, Midas like, turn everything to gold for them, and held back their stock for a rising market, leaving the company with all the risks of the venture in the export of frozen meal. The anticipated rise never came, as the company provided themselves from the Taranaki market in part, and it, is these people who are now obliged to force their stock inio the markoi to meet their engagements, hence the howl of indignation. It can scarcely be expected that the company, while having for ite object the encouragement of the agricultural interest, will regulate its operations in the interest of any particular district. There is little doubt that but for the meat export trade of the company finding an outlet for the natural increase of stock, the prices, of which the Waikato graziers now complain, would have been still lower than the present ruling rates.

A - w tudy of Milk-Setting. — It is generally taken for granted that the ripening of cream consists in souring it. There is a bare possibility that souring may have something to do with the results, but the ripening does not depend on souring alone. , When I set a sample of milk for 44 hours at 63 degrees in an atmosphere of pure oxygen, and another equal sample from the same mess of milk for the same' time and at the same temperature in an atmosphere containing no oxygen, both soured exactly alike and both samples produced exactly the same quantity of butter. If the ripening of cream and the' development of butter flavour depended on souring alone, these two samples of butter should have been alike, since the milk and cream were sour alike in both samples ; but tliey were not alike. They were very different, and the churning was different. The cream from the milk set in oxygen gas churned- in two-thirds of the time required for ohurning the cream of the milk from which oxygen was excluded by enveloping it in carbonic acid gas. The. butter from the former was very high-flavoured and delicious, and remarkable for its long keeping. The butter from the latter was less flavoured and equally remarkable for being short-lived. The milk-fats in the latter case appeared to have acquired no new flavour from the fact of souring, but to have retained unchanged the new milk flavour they had when the milk was first set. This experiment, repeated till the results were demonstrated to be uniform, is interesting as showing the fallacy of the current opinion that souring is tho potent agent in ripening cream, either for the purpose of heightening the flavour of butter or to give it long keeping, or to make churning easy, for it proves positively that something else than souring is necessary to these ends, and that that something is free oxygeu. Airing, not souring', is the efficient agent for effecting these purposes, but even if well aired, the effect will be but feeble if the temperature is kept too low. These statements are demonstrated facts, and they explain why submerging milk in ice-water, or in any water, while it affords the. best of protection frpm deleterious influences without, fails in promoting the highest ppssible attainment of good in the resulting biytjev. They explain why cream, in b'eing^ s,epai?at,ed by a centrifugal.

machine, while fresh from the cow and sweet and warm, will develop more flavour in a minute, by tho powerful airing it gets from currents made by the lightning speed with which it rotates, than can bo developed in a day under ice- water with an effectual exclusion from air, the developing agent. It is true, cream may be quickly raised by refrigeration, and warmed and ripened afterwards, but not with the best effects. Cream which is growing old without growing butter is deteriorating ; and, since it has been shown that aeration is essential to a proper ripening, it must be evident that it cannot be "as effectually aired after it is collected into a mass, as it can be when it is spread out on the surface of the milk at just the right tomperaturo. The facts above stated are not offered with any thought of settling the question whether acidity plays any part in ripening cream or developing butter flavour, for they do not decide whether the influence of airing is increased or diminished, or not at all affected by the fact of souring; but they do demonstrate that souring alone does not develop any new or improved flavour in the butter-fats, and they prove that airing is absolutely essential. Neither are they intended to decide whether open setting, submerging, the centrifugal, or some other mode of separating cream, is the most profitable for general adoption. They are offered for the purpose of explaining the ground for remarks in a previous number of the Tribune — about "ice iv the dairy" — to which exceptions . are taken, and with the hope of giving some useful hints to amateur butter-makers, by way of pointing them to the most efficient cause of superior influence. — Professor L. B. Arnold, in the New York Tribune.

Proiit, not Production, Desirable.— Every few days is chronicled the death of some noted butter or milk-producing cow.. To beat some previous record, they are pampered and gorged ; put under high pressure for a longer or shorter time; perhaps an enormous yield it; reached, but the next we hear, the cow is dead — died of milk fever is the story — " killed with kindness," through the ambition of the owner, would be the truth — " busted," in vulgar phrase. The wisdom of such a course is on a par with that of a lot of engineers who, to see which boiler could sustain the highest ' pressure, build enormous fires and weight the safety-valves ; nine might come out of the trial with boilers strained but whole, the tenth one "bursts." Such forcing is not only cruelty to the cow, but absolutely folly for the owners, and deceiving the public. It is of no advantage to force from 20 to 40 pounds of butter from a cow, when to do it costs a good deal more than the butter will sell for, and " Mils the cow in the bargain" ; nor do such animals possess any characteristics worthy of propagation. What is wanted are cows that will give not the largest production of milk and butter regardless of cost, but the largest production in comparison to the food consumed — a yield that shall show the largest profit in its production, Let's have done with this high pressure, foolishness and cruelty. Now give us a record of the food consumed and its value, as well as of the butter and milk produced ; let us see the dollars-and-cents as2>ect, and let those cows have the highest honours that yield the largest product of milk and butter from the food eaten, whose existence ration is the smallest ; or, iv other words, those giving a quart of milk or a pound of butter at the lowest cost. This is the direction in which the profit should be sought, and not wholly in the sale of tho stock. — Rural New Yorker.

About Hones. — The bone industry of the United States is an important one. The four feet of an ordinary ox will make about a pint of neatsfoot oil. Not a bone of any kind is thrown away. Many cattle shin bones are shipped to Europe for the making of knifehandles, where . they bring £5 per ton. The thigh boner, are the most valuable, being worth Clb" per tou for cutting into toothbrush handles. The fore-legs are worth £(] per ton, and are made, into collar buttons, pavasol handles, and jewellery, though sheep's legs nr<; the staple for parasol handles. The water in which tins bones are boiled is reduced to glue, the dust which comes from sawing tho bones i.s fed to cattle and poultry, and all bones that cannot bo unr-d as noted, or for bone black, used in mining the sugar we oat, are made into fertilisers, and holp to enrich the soil.

W«ltcriii{f Hsrses.—- The present system of watering is surely capable of improvement. The prevailing idea seems to be that a horse is like a bean, only fit to be used when every particle of moisture has been extracted from it. Comparatively fcjw grooms give horses as much water as they will drink, simply, as it would appear, because they dread its effects, and not because they are opposed to ad libitum treatment itself, for though niggardly with the water, they often keep hay in the rack all day. If-there be no danger of a horse over eating, why should over-drinking be apprehended ? Some years ago there was a movement in favour of the plan of letting horses have water before them at all times, except, of course when they came in hot. Some persons who gave the experiment a fair trial affirm that horses so treated drank less in the course of the day than those watered from a bucket at stated intervals, and our own experience coincides with theirs. Nor is there anything irrational in this, while the advantages of the ' system seem self-evident. Our horses are fed on dry and consequently thirst-producing food. If this thirst be not quenched there is a tendency to fever, which is also furthered by the strong work performed by a hunter ; whereupon the groom comes to the rescue with his " bit of physic." If nature were allowed to find her own balance, this feverishness would probably never appear, as a horso never drinks for drinking sake, as some of his masters and attendants do at times. Moreover, a horse with water always before him never drinks much at a time, and is never unfit for work at any moment ; whereas the horse watered only at feeding times can ' never be used until some time after the bucket has gone round The Field. ' -

Curiosities of Irrigation. — It is found by actual experience that after land has been saturated by irrigation a few years, it requires less water to make a crop of grain, corn included, and this is an importantf actor in the future of the water supply, for it means that more land can be brought under cultivation than was at first thought possible. Another fact is that irrigated land does not seem to wear out — the water acting as a perpetual manure and renewing its fertility as fast as it is lost, as has been proved by the experience of other countries notably of the Po Valley of Italy, of Southern France, and of Spain, wheie irrigation has been practised from time immemorial. It is the same in Old and New Mexico for two centuries. The Saints in Utah find their irrigated land uninipoverished after thirty or thirty-five years of constant cropping.— Chicago Trijjune.

Horse Disease in Victoria —That a mysterious disease, intermittent m its appearance, has been affecting numbers of horses \\\ this Colony (says the Melbourne Week.lv T.iincJ-' 1 dwing the past 10 years will be^neral^ &gK J I

to. The districts visited, as a rule, have been the more elevated and exposed of our agricultural centres, such as Kynelon, Romsey, and Lancefleld, and since the wave of agricultural settlement set in the direction of Gippsland a complaint showing somewhat similar symptoms has appeared there also. In the Kyneton district the disease was looked upon as the result of keeping horses in small enclosures, and as the breeding of this stock was made, a specialty by many of the farmers, continuous stocking soon removed the grasses and herbage so necessary for a healthy state of the system. The complaint has been experienced in many parts of the Colony to a more or less extent, varying according to the climatic influences, but the fact of its proving fatal in Gippsland shows that there must be other and more powerful influences at work for the production of the disease, the variation of symptoms and effects in different neighbourhoods — in fact, pointing to an active poison or parasitic affection, caused by vegetable fungi, being responsible for the unwelcome visitation.

A Colonial Failing- — Too groat a greed for land (says the Queenslander) has caused hundreds to fail as farmers in this Colony. The simple fencing required by a large block has absorbed more money than would have sufficed to enrich and bring in a good return from a smaller area. The adage that a small farm well tilled means a pocket well filled is a truism. Many a selector has lost heart through spreading his labour and capital over 320 acres in the bush, when, if he had been content with. 32 acres near a market, lie could have made a competency. Our agricultural reporter mentions in another column of this issue several instances of farmers rising to comfort, amounting almost to affluence, by being content with 8 to 12 acres of good land near to a market. We know of similar successes from a few acres of pineapples, from orchards, from vineyards, and from garden produce. In general it is the man who concentrates his energies and his capital upon a small area that lives the most comfortably, and is most free from the worrying cares of life.

Cost of Labour at Home - In commenting on the results of the labours of a recent commission the Mark Lane Express says : — Land agents and farmers who gave evidence showed fairly enough what labourers really earn, though in most cases without including perquisites. Mr Beck, agent to the Prince of Wales, stated that the standard wages in Norfolk are 14s a week, and that with piecework, 16s to 17s may be taken as the average of the year round. Mr Hawke, referring to Cornwall, put the average wages at 14s to 15s a week. Mr Scarth said that in Durham labourers get 17s to 20s a week, with cottages and gardens rent free, and other allowances. In Shropshire, the same witness estimated the men's average earnings, in money and kind, at the value of £1 0s 3d a week.