GLEANINGS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1764, 12 September 1885, Page 7

GLEANINGS.

— A shoulder of mutton contains one-third more bone than the leg. — Every one familiar with binlls and entire horses knows that the surest way to make them vicious is to pet them.

— Experiments in some of the colder Eastern states have shown that cows supplied with warm water to drink give one-third more than those allowed to drink water at its natural winter temperature.

— The farmer who has good tools and firstclass implements is quite justified in refu&iug to lend them even to his nearest neighbour. They are never so good after they have been borrowed.

— It is said that there is no better index to tho health of cattle and horses than the condition of the hair. Indigestion and all other diseases that farm stock is heir to, even in a short time, are plainly indicated by a rough har.sh coat of the animal.

— Old well-rotted stable manure is excellent for potatoes. Avoid coarse and unfermented manures of all kinds. Wood-ashes and lime are good in some soils, and bone-dust and hen manure well mixed with several parts of soil before application are good in every soil.

— English journals report that within a few weeks of each other, in April last, four of the best Clydesdale sires in Scotland died from overfeeding for show purposes — namely, Stanleymuir (1536), Corsewall (1420), Trademark (3269), and the Darnley Prince (2718).

— Animals which have only that food which is given them should be fed three times a day. Regularity in feeding them should be practised, also, as they are subject, to disease as well as ourselves. The allowance of food for each meal should be the same each day, a"nd only varied in cases where the condition of the animal demands it.

— Even a jackdaw, with all his cunning and courage, is sure sooner or later to fall a victim to the cats. A hedgehog, however, will thrive anywhere, and if allowed to alternate his existence between thf* back-garden and the kitchen, will do much to frighten away the mice and keep down black beetles. — St. James' Gazette.

To cure a horse blown with wheat, it is recommended that the animal be given three pints of new milk as soon as possible, and one pint every half hour until it passes the wheat, which, if the remedy is speedily appied, will be in a very short time. Cattle blown with clover can be cured with a handful of quick lime, well shaken up in a pint of water, and perhaps a little lime put in the milk to be given to the horse might hasten its action ; art any rate it would do no harm.

— " Even in the long cultivated fields of England," says Sir J. B. Lawes, "it is rare to find a lack of the essential mineral manures, so that if care is taken to keep or supply carbonaceous matter to the soil, and not to allow weeds to appropriate the nitrogen as it becomes soluble in summer warmth and moisture, soils arc not readily exhausted even by heavy crops."

The Sugar Cane (London), in the lest number to hand, says: — "Unsatisfactory as beet-grow-ing has proved in England, matters are not much better on tho Continent. A warm controversy is being carried on between the fabricanfo, on th 6 one hand, and the culth ators of

beetroot, cm the other, as to the price to be paid for the ro'&fo, ftfid the conditions under which' they shall be grtttWJ." -'■Mri instructive experim'^i* flf the worldknown English 1 experimenters Sh' J. B, Lawes and Mr Gilbert sfeows why it is that it is not advisable to grow cere's! wops' in 1 the' orchrtrtL According to their estimates aii acre of fallow land on 27th June (midsummer) contafaed/toa depth of 4ft 7in, 2875 tons of water, wJiilo" an acre adjoining, in barley, contained, at the same depth, only 1951 tons of water. In other Words!, the roots of the barley had sucked up out of the sdl 934 tons of water for every acre. —Soil covered wit living herbage or with such dead vegetable ni'atter US leaves, straw, wood, dung, &c., says Prof. E. Wolfriy, fe warmer in winter and cooler in summer than bate soil under similar conditions. The difference of temperature is greatest! in summer and least in spring and autinnn. Bare soils heats more quickly in spring and cools more quickly in autumn than that covered with living or dead vegetable matter. The fluctuations of temperature are ranch smaller in covered than in bare soil. —A method adopted in forming >vi orchard upon a somewhat rocky hillside in Califortri*. was to drilY holes some 4ft deep where it was In* tended to plant, and in these fire a heavy charge of dynamite or gi'jVftb powder. Any large pieces of rock thus broken were feesoved, the hole filled with good rich soil, and the tree" planted. It is Ftated that the force of the powder s1?s 1 ? "wised i'u- cocking of the shaly substratum that, ttie r..01h wtsj.o thus enabled to find abundant crevices to penctrase, and the experiment was considered a great success. —Taj celebrated Underly ha-d of shorthorns, the xJi'Dijeiij^of I3arl Bective, L> now fed almost entirely on silage, and Mr Ormiston, the baliff, >vportj mo^L favourably of its use. Ke states that on taking off the bilacjc, and substituting roots , the milk was tested and found to have ditveased from 13 to 11. A similar, experiment vps tried with some ordinary duLy cautie, and thf> eveam dropped from 13 to 13. Recent experiment!^, howovor, show that although the milage is iixe^eiit food for dairy stock, it fails when fattening is tho object.