Sunflowers as a Farm Crop.

Otago Witness, 14 December 1893, Page 8

Sunflowers as a Farm Crop.

TO THE EDITOR.

Sir, — Will you kindly insert the following paragraph taken from the Toronto Empire of September 28, wherein Professor Robertson speaks confidently of the value of the sunflower. A year or two ago you inserted something similar from my pen, but I fear it has been overlooked by your readers, as I see very few of them growing where I have not myself thrown the seed over fences. — I am, &c, W. D. Sutherland.

In tUo near future, declares Professor Robertson, of the Experimental farm, agriculture ia Canada will be revolutionised to a large extent by the cultivation of sunflowers. The growth of sunflowers this year at the Experimental farm, he adds, has been quite successful, and notwithstanding the few heavy wind storms there will be an abundanb crop. It is not exaggerating factp, we are told, to say that the cultivation of these flowers will become of almost as much importance in Canada as barley

has ever been. The experience with the flowers at the Experimental farm this year has demonstrated this. In the first place, sunflowers provide wholesome food for cattle ; and again, the finer product of the flower can be made into an excellent oil, which is already displacing the olive and other oils for table salads in England and other countries. There are 10 acres of the flowers at the Government iarm. The heads alone are to be placed in the siloee, together with the Indian corn and horse beans, making an ensilage known as Robertson s ensilage for the sake of distinction The mixture was_ only experimented upon last year, and this summer fully 150 farmers in Canada are laying in a supply of it for the winter.

Advantages of Cabeful Milking.— A German contemporary reports a somewhat interesting experiment which shows the importance of careful milking. Five cows were milked for a fortnight by the ordinary cowman— let us call him A— who usually milked them, and who was not informed of the experiment in course. The succeeding fortnight the cows were fed exactly as before, but were milked by another man (B), who had been informed of the experiment. The fortnight's yield in each case here stands compared •—

xms case clearly shows the advantage of careful and exhaustive milking. But rapidity of milking has also its corresponding advantage The quicker the udder i, emptied, the rid£ the milk is m fat According to the account of a trial made with nine cows during 22 days, and published by a Brunswick Igricultura paper, the fatty contents of the milk milking. It may hence be inferred that the long conversations which are apt to take place between those engaged in milking are altogether unseasonable. Moreover, the circumstance that the first milk drawn from the teat is much more aqueous than the last portion is another and strong reason for exhaustive milk- }£ S ' Ia " ? tetfey well known « t00 » th at when the udder is not entirely emptied the milkyielding capacity of the animal diminishes, and in this way a good cow may be spoiled. It ia only by dmt of exciting more and more the glands which secrete the milk that the cow has been brought to yield more milk than is required to nourish her calf. The udder cau hold about a litre and a-half of milk. Now in the period after calving, cows give considerably more than three litres of milk at each milking, and it must be inferred from this that a portion, and often the greater portion, of the milk is secreted by the mammary .glands only during the operation of milking.

The Wellington friends of Mr George Fisher intend to get up a subscription for him previous to his leaving for Australia.

r< v-i Own i a is- A - Cowman B. Fxces« Cow. Kilos of Milk Kilos of Milk. Kilos: -l- . . » 04 „ 77 i o 3 ... 99-5 ■' 137 -IL 4 ... 807 '" SB ■" ?l .. 5 ••• 80 ... :::ni7 ::: 3 ?|