NOTES ON RURAL TOPICS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2164, 15 August 1895, Page 5

NOTES ON RURAL TOPICS.

Owing ta the severe weather and the fcarcity of

grass many ewe flocks havo had *In-lamb Erres. a large allowancs of hay or other dry fodder this winter. While it is an excellent thing to hare plenty of good dry fodder for the sheep in a hard winter, it may prove to be not altogether an unmixed ble3sing when lambing time comes unless care has been taken to give an occasional change of food as a laxative, for hay, grain, chaff, &c, is rery apt to be too binding and to bring about whatris called impaction of thehtomash. This impaotion is liable to kill the unboru lamb, and in that case the death of tho ewe will result if the dead lamb be not removed in time. This sort of trouble usually begins about a month before lambing time, and the symptoms are generally as follows : — The ewes stand and mope about without feeding ; th*y al«o seem etiff in the legs and neck, and after a while lie down. If lifted up they move abont a little and then lie down again and die. When a ewe is taken in this way it is pretty certain that the lamb is dead inside her, but an examination of the first one that dies will soon decide the matter. The only chance of saving tho life of a ewo having an unborn dead lamb is to get the lamb away as soon as possible before putrefaction sets in, when the difficulty of removal and the danger to the ewe are both much greater. A ewe cannot expeladead lambby ordinary labour, but if taken in time and assistance carefully rendered the lamb can bs got away whole. If any portion is left behind inflammation or septicseoiid may set in, with fatal results. A few years ago there wai a good deal of discussion about a mysterious disease that attacked iti-lamb ewes shortly before lambing time. In nearly every ease it was

hole and another to put in the " plant," and well tread in round the same. After 12 months' growth the plants are fit for thinning out and transplanting.. Cattle should not ba allowed to graze on the grass until the roots are thoroughly established. It takes 3630 "plants" to the acre, and there are about 2800 plants to the ton ; thus 1 ton 6cvt will cover one acre. The most favourable time for planting is from May 1 to end of July. The grass will retain it? vitality »ad strike root after being out of its oand bed for three months or more.

Time was when in our fair land fruit-growing was a pleasure. Blightß and the Insect Pests allied hosts of insect pest 3 were ami unknown, for as Nature left it Fruit Culture, no laud was freer of plagues of • all kinds whatsoever. But that favoured time gradually passed away, and the life of the fruitgrower is made miserable by the constant fight against potent, if apparently insignificant fors. First the woolly aphis, or American blight, as it is popuUriy termed, put in an appearance 1 , and for the first time the fight with a malevolent Nature began. Prior to that Nature was wholly beneficent. Remedies innumerable have been tried and recommended, and in hundreds of orchards a great deal of time is taken up with washing and painting trees with various nostrums. The American blight was followed in. due course with the red spider and the different kinds of scale blight, till a clean orchard became a thing of the past. The American blight is the most prevalent, s bub is the easiest of all the pests- to keep in check. Since the adoption of blightproof stocks whereon to graft the apples, the. work of keeping down the woolly aphis has been lessened by half. Underground, about the roots of the trees in winter time is ili9 chief hßveu of refuge for the blighb, and on digging about the trees the roots will be seen white with the blight, which lives there secure till ! tho return of summer, when it loaves its biding p'.aoe to suck the juice] of the tree. Now it stands to reason tuat if all apple trees have a stock of the blight-prcof variety tho aphis will not descend about the roots, but its ravages will be entirely confined to the branches, where it must stand all the rigours of the winter in exposed positions. Washing with hot soapy water will effectually destroy this blight on such trees if done during winter and again in early spring. A good plan is to brush over all .blighted places with water almost boiling hot in which soft soap has been boiled in the proportion of £lb of the soap to each gallon of water. So much for the woolly aphis, but there are other blights which cannot be so easily dealt with. The scale blights attack all kinds of apple trees, whether grafted on blight-