BRITISH AGRICULTURE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2080, 4 January 1894, Page 8

BRITISH AGRICULTURE.

(Fboji Our English Agricultural Correspondent.)

London, November 4. A year which throughout the greater portion of ib has been one of disaster to Autumn most English farmers bids fair Work. bo end well. The autumn has

been one of the best ever known for cultivating the stubbles, killing the weeds, and thoroughly aerating the soil. Again, since October set in there has been an abundant rainfall, which has greatly increased the quantity of foed on the pastures and the bulk of the root crops, while it has also brought up good plants ot young clover in hundreds of fields which appeared a 9 bare as a road four or five weeks ago. For wheat-sowing, too, the past month has been highly propitious, as the land has worked splendidly afber the rains, and the crop has nearly all been sown in good time and under the most favourable of possible circumstances. The weather ha* also been favourable to the harvesting of the potato and mangel crops. Ab the beginning of this week we had a change to cold weather, with two severe night frosts ; bub rain has followed, and the temperature has risen once more. Cabbie are still oub in bhe pastures to a great extent, and will remain &o until severe weather force? them into bhe yards, in order that the stores of winter keep may be economised as far as possible. Sir John Lowe3 has jusb issued his reporb on the wheat crop at Rothamsted. TheTiold Taking, as usual, bhe produce of a of number of his experimental plots, Whc.it. onenot manured during 41 years of continuous wheat-growing, and others manured annually with different fertilisers, he brings out the low average of 21£ measured bushes per tore, equivalent to 22£ bushels of 601b, as compared with 29£ for the preceding 10 years. But he does nob venture to say that the average for the whole kingdom will ba as low as 22£ bushels, and probably ib will ba aboub 25 bushels. He estimates the requirements for consumption during bhe cereal year at nearly 29 million quartera. If the yield for the kingdom proves as small as the Rothamsted average, we shall have only aboub 5,000,000 quarters of the Home- crop for food ; but probab"y there will be at leasb 5,500,000 quarbers. However, we ehall have to deriye from surplus stocks and imports bebween 23 and 24 million quarbers. In consequence of the certain shortness of the hay crop, and the deficiency of Economy in the root crops also in some parts ' Winter of Eagland, a number of exFeedlng. perieuced farmers were induced to contribute to the Royal Agricultural Society's Journal their advice as to the most economics! method of feeding stock during the coming winter. They all declared that straw must be used to take the place of hay, as, even when the latter is in fair supply, it is worth so much money that ib" would be folly to give ib extensively to cattle or sheep. The following recommendations given by Mr Henry Simmons, an experienced Berkshire farmer and land agent, may be found interesting by New Zealanders :— - Horses. — Wheat chaff with some oat or barley straw, cut fine, mixed with three bushels of the following mixture for each horse per week, adding a little salt:— One bushel of brewers' grains and two bushels of maize, Egyptian beans and oats in equal proportions. Estimated cost 8s per week. In feeding horses I have found malt dust, well soaked in water, a valuable material ; a proportion of roots or potatoes may be added and less corn given. Milking Cows. — A small allowance of hay with oat or barley straw chaffed, add one bushel of bran, half-bushel of toppings (or sharps), one bushel of oatmeal, with a small quantity of grains and salt. Estimated cost per week about 7s 6d. Decorticated cotton cake may be preferred by some to toppings. In feeding cows the rations will be altered according as the object is to produce milk or butter. I may say the above is for butter ; a greater proportion of grains would be used, with roots and less corn, if for milk. Fat Cattle.— Stall feeding will be almost impracticable, there being nothing with which to make dung, which is often the chief end to be attained. Instead of our usual fat Christmas beasts, we must carry the animals on through the winter as best we can, rather as stores, and make beef when the early green crops and grasses come in, leaving other districts— where the meadows are good enough to feed beasts fat with the aid of artilicial foods — to Bupply our Christmas requirements.

Sheep. — If we only get rain enough to carry on the present growth of green crops and latesown turnips to perfection, less difficulty may be experienced in wintering the flock than may at first sight appear. A dry flock with plenty of roots, a little cotton cake, or an equivalent in corn or malt dust, will store well, and even fatten with a little extra time given ; and additional corn, which at the present low value, and in view of the favourable terms upon which sheep at the early fairs were purchased, will leave a margin for profit. Last year I lambed 500 ewes, producing over 600 lambs. The ewes had a very few roots drawn to them on the pastures daily, and some straw chaff in their troughs each morning till they had lambed. We had a few lamb 3at Christmas, the rest falling in January. I then added a little hay to the straw chaff, giving the ewes their fill of turnips, and lib linseed cake daily, and the lambs— as soon as old enough to eat it— white peas and cake broken very fine indeed, in their troughs in front of the ewes. Thg hay was discontinued as the hard weather we experienced broke ; and I had no difficulty in fattening the whole of the lambs, and selling them at an average price of 365, and afterwards the ewes, these making a few shillings per head beyond the price I paid for them as stores, fn addition to the clip of wool. This would seem to leave a fair living profit, but the drought, by •diniinishingourcorn crops (grown where the sheep had fed the root 3 with corn and cake) one-half, leaves the balance on the wrong side. My system is to buy in a f rs3h full-mouthed ewe flock each year, saving my own ram lambs from the previous year's flock, thus getting f re3h blood and fattening ewes and lambs together. I have this season 6"10 ewes, bought at an average of 30s per head ; these were all, I hope, safely in lamb by the end of August, and ought, with ordinary luck, to pay for wintering. The Board of Agriculture has just published a volume on "Further ExperiPotato Disease ments in Checking Potato Experiments. Disease," giving the experience gained in this and other countries during the year 1892. Th£ results of using the Bordeaux mixture in England have nob by any means been uniformly favourable, although the compiler of the reporb sums up in a manner highly favourable to the treatment of the disease. Ue admits that the mixture has neither entirely prevented nor cured the disease, but claims that it has generally diminished the ex^nt of the malady materially, increased the weight of sound tubers, and proved remunerative. He goes on to ratnark that the preventive treatment, which is the application of the mixture ab leasb once before disease appears, has proved much more successful than fcha curative treatment, or application after disease has shown itself. These statements are borne out by the majority of the experiments ; bub the majority is not sufficiently large, in my opinion, to justify the writer in recommending the universal application oil the preventive treatment. The most successful requite were obtained with fbressinf s cooeieti&g of

201b of sulphate of copper, 201b of quicklime, and lOOgal of water. The addition of treacle to make the drugs adhere to the leaves has been found to be no particular advantage, while it adds to the expense. Until recently, only half as much lime as copper was used ; but now equal quantities are recommended, ia order that the acid of the copper may be completely neutralised. Ib was hoped that this addition of lime would prevent the damage which had been shown to take place in some cases ; but the records of the experiments show that in a considerable number of instances more harm than good was done by the dressing, especially to crops which do nob suffer from the disease, and therefore do not need the medicine. la the experiments carried out for the Royal Agricultural Society by DrVoelckerat Wohurn, which were probably conducted more carefully, and more accurately chronicled, than any others, there were 15 trials, in each of which One plot was dressed twice before disease appeared, one was dressed once after ib appeared, and one was not dressed at all. Now, judging by the weight of sound tubers, the preventive and curative treatment alike did good in eight cases and harm in seven. The net gain of sound tubers in 15 trials was a little under a ton to the credit of the preventive treatment, and a little under one ton and a-half to the curative treatment. Bach of these gains represent 15 acres, as the quantities are given per acre. Moreover, the cost of the dressings averaged at least 9s each ; therefore the preventive treatment cost 18s an acre, so that less than two tons of net gain in sound tubers cost £13 10 a ; while the cost of the single dressing under the curative treatment was £6 15s, for which less than ono ton and a-half of extra potatoes were obt lined. Now, if so small a balance of good results is likely to be obtained, ib is absurd to say that the preventive treatment should be universally applied, whether there is any reason to expect disease or not. M. Girard, the French chemist who originated the treatment, says that it should be used in all cases, because you never know when disease will not appear ; but considering that the chance of doing harm is nearly as great as that of doing good, his advice seems to me to be thoroughly unsound. The other experiments recorded were much more successful, as a rule, than those at Woburn ; but some of the records, I venture to think, are nob to be completely trusted, as they contain internal evidence of looseness of statement. At the same time, I should certainly recommend the application of the remedy the moment disease has shown itself in a single spot in a crop ; also in very wet seasons when there is every reason to expect an extensive attack, and on wet soils where there is almost always more or less disease ; bub I would nob use the remedy ia a dry season, or on land nob subject to the disease, unless I had good reason to expect ib. Parliament reassembled for an autumn session on Thursday, mainly for the Tillage purpose of passing the Local Democracy. Government Bill and the Employers' Liability Bill. Both measures are principally intended to catch the votes of the working classes — the former in the rural districts and the latter in the towns. For this very reason both political parties profess to be in favour of the legislation proposed by the Government ; for it is generally believed that a general election is not far distant, and Conservatives are as fearful as Liberals can be of offending the masses of voters. The Local Government Bill is the only one of the two measures which comes within the scope of these notes. Ib has been described in a previous letter under the name of the Parish Councils Bill, by which it has been generally known. A debate on the second reading is in progress at the time of writing, and on Monday and Tuesday last the matter was thoroughly discussed ab the bwo principal agricultural associations of the country which discuss measures of agricultural politics — the London Farmers' Club and the Central and Associated Chambers of Agriculture. Now the members of theße associations are large ratepayers, and they cannot regard with complacency a measure which threatens to take away from themselves the power which they have hitherto held of regulating the expenditure of rates in their parishes and districts. The bill, as stated in my last letter, proposes to confer great powers upon parish meetings, parish councils, and district councils. A bare majority ab a parish meeting will have power, if the bill passes in its present form, to order a village bo be lighted with gas, and to be provided with a publio bath and washhouse, a public library, a cemetery, and various other costly improvements. This majority, in nine cases onb of ben, if nob in 99 out of 100, supposing that the people use the power proposed to he given to them, would consist of cottagers who pay no rates, and who therefore have nothing to deter them from any expenditure which would be to their advantage, pleasure, or comfort. Hitherto in voting ab vestry meetings or in the elections of boards of guardians, ratepayers have been entitled to vote in proportion to their valuation for rating purposes up to the limit of six votes ; bub now a thoroughly democratic system of local government is proposed, and the one-man- one- vote principle is to be carried out entirely. Consequently unless the bill is amended the men who really pay the rates in the rural disbricts may be completely swamped by the voices of those who do nob contribute to the rates at all, unless ib is indirecbly. The great majority of the agricultural labourers pay only from Is to 2s a week for their cobbages and gardens, and these rents do nob pay the lowest current rate of interest on the cost of bnilding. In 6horjb, they are nominal rents and not commercial rents at all. The owners pay the rates on the cottages as a general rule, being compelled to do so in many cases by the Compound Householders' Act, which enables a vestry to require the owners of cottages under a certain rental to compound for the rates upon them, allowing them a considerable reduction in consequence. Now I contend that men who do nob pay commercial rents cannot be said to pay rates indirectly when the rates are compounded for by the landlords. Ib is nob surprising to find then that both the large agricultural associations above-named protested vigorously against allowing these compound householders the power of levying rates and spending the money or electing those who will do so. They reasonably pontend that no one should have a vote at these local elections or ab the parish meetings without paying rates directly, in order that any extravagant expenditure may be brought home to him. They also object to interference with j the existing boards of guardians, by whom they say the Poor Law has been administered in a sabisfacbory manner. The bill would merge the existing boards of guardians i a the district councils, abolishing all property qualifications and I electing the members in a throughly demo* cratic manner. It is feared tbah the result will be a lavish expenditure on outdoor relief, and this has been the chief aim of our Poor Law administrators to diminish, the results being an immense decrease in pauperism. Many other objections to the bill were made ab the two meetings. Most of these will re-appear in amendments to be introduced when the House $oes into Committee on tb,e bill, Ia many

respects the measure is to be welcomed. The existing vestry system is an abomination which ought to be done away with, and ibis quite time that the people of the villages should have more voice in their management than (hey have possessed hitherto, and greater powers of improvement. For my part, I believe that the bill will do much more good than harm if no one is allowed to vote without paying rates directly, because I feel sure that men will take care not to run themselves to the expendibure even of a few shillings a year] for rates unless ib is for bhoroughly desirable objects. Ib has been agreed by the chambers of agriculture to ask the president of the Corn Board of Trade to receive a Sales. depubation from them upon the question of corn sales. This subject has been before the counbry ab various times for the last 20 years, and no general agreement upon ib has ever been come to. The number of weights and measures by which agricultural produce is sold is not only absurd, bub also exasperating. Only the other day a farmer who was giving evidence before the assistant commissioner to bhe Royal Commission on Agriculture in Lancashire quoted the prices of wheat and beans per " wiadle," of barley per "pack," and of potatoes per "load." Now I met farmers from several counties at the Chamber of Agriculture meeting, and not one of them could tell me the meaning of one of theso terms. ■ This is only an example of the perfect chaos of local weights and measures currenb in this country, and ib is quite time that uniformity should be introduced. Ab lasb the great majority of farmers have been brought to favour the hundredweight as a standard for the sale of all corn. Of course, as usual, bhere is a minority of objectors ; but if we waited to satisfy everybody, the reform would never take place ab all. A large number of replies to a circular on this subjecb have been received from Finger and farmers by bhe Royal AgriculToe in tural Society, bub the evidence Turnips. is of an entirely conflicting character. Some say that dry seasons conduce to the prevalence of the malady, others that wet seasons have this effecb, and yeb others that seasons have nothing to do with it. Again, some declare that lime is an effective remedy, and others that it is useless. Probably these witnes es were really referring to two distinct maladies, both popularly called " finger and toe." One i« bhe parasitical disease, anbury, and the other a forked malforma'ion of the root caused by the partial sterility of the soil, or possibly drought in some cases. Most absurdly, the directors of the inquiry have neglected to distinguish between these distinct defects, and bherefore no clear evidence is likely to be obtained.