AGRICULTURAL AND PASTORAL NEWS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2168, 12 September 1895, Page 4

AGRI CULTU RAL AND PASTORAL NEWS.

It will be seen from our report of the condttsion of the Government Dairy School ooarte %i Stratford, which appears elsewhere in this Issue, that the instructors intend giving a leiiei of demonstrations of spring oheese-infekrag »fc different centres iv both North and South I»hnds. Stirling, Waikouaiti, andMaUuraaxe definitely fixed upon for the south, arid if arrangements cm ba made Henley will be added to this list. A factory at Bautts Psnintula and oae weit of luverc\rgill will co«apleto the list. A week will be spent in each factory. The directors of the Btirliug Dairy Factory, in th»ir ninth annul report, state that not* withstanding tbe utter collapse of the London cheese market the prices realrted for the season's output have enabled the company to par it* way and terminate the year with a small balance to orortib. The supply of nvlk for the season (308,207ga1) produced 428,4071b of cheesa. The directors recommend the payment of a dividend of 5 per cent, en the nbare capital. The opening price of milk for the season will bo at the rate of 3d per gallon of 111b, testing 3'o per cent, of butter fat. This standard will be r&ried throughout the season, as the directors m*y de< m prudent and necessary. In the tr«nfc of a rue in cheese, tbe price of milk may be raised. The directors compliment Mr Sawera on bis management. The Standing Committee appointed by (tbe Frozen Meat Conference has appointed Mwsrs W. C. Buchanan, O. Pharazyn, and W. H. Millward as Executive Committee to watch otet the interest* of the frczen mcab industry, and to communicate from time to time with tbe Standing Committee for both islands. It was resolved— "That freezing companies be communicated with on Ihe subjects of the grading of meat and cool storage, in terms of Mr B-gg's motions ; and that copies of Mr Howe's report, on the possibilities of opening up trade between Australia, India, and Japan be procured." The Press report? that the Canterbury Frozou Me&t and Dairy Export Company have taken a new departure, and from the Ist November next the original charges ou freszing, baggirg, and freight will be incorporated in one confolidated charge, under the heading of mutton and lamb. The chargea under the new scale have been arranged as under : — Summer months : December to May— Mutton, fr&fiing, baggiDg, and f.o.b. and freight paid to London, 1 3-10 d per lb ; lamb, do, ljjd per lb. Intermediate mouths : June to November — MuttoD, do, l£d per lb; lamb, do, 1 3-10 d per lb. Winter months : July, August, September, and October— Mutton, do, 9-10 d per lb. Mr Waymouth, the secrotiry, states that by tafcrog our charges and adding to them, say, fi p#r lb tor, insurance and exchange, and $d per lb to covet London selling charges and lota in weight, shippers can at a xKnre see vthat their charges are, and thus be able to compare looal values with London Belling prices ai advised from time to time. ' The secretary of the Otago Agricultural and Pastoral Society has received a letter from Mensra Nimrao and Blair offeriug the society two toDs of "Standard" hone manure, valued at £10 10a, as a first prize for the b&ifc 10 acres of Aberdeen or other yellow-fleshed turnips, and also one ton of the same manuio aa second prize in the same class. In offering these prizes tor competition in Ot»go, Messrs Ninuno and Blair write to Mr Dnthie that they " trust they will be the.means of creating increased enthusiasm among farinars in the doings of your society, which undoubtedly deserves the support of agriculturists generally." Tne Sydney MorniDg Herald states that by the arrangements made by Messrs M'Arthut and Co. with the Golf line of steamers by the end of the current year Australian bullocks wilUbe | seen driving to the abattoirs in the great m*nu« facturing city of Manchester, and frozen mutton will be landed direct from the steamers lying at the city wharves into fche cold Btorea. Wool is to be landed within a stone's throw, so to spe»k, of the factories of Manchester, and 45,000 carcases of mutton will be delivered at the meat markets. As the Gulf of Siam, the flrst vessel, will resch Homo a little ahead of the Christmas season, consignments of poultry will be largely in evidence in the live stock on board the ite*mer. Mr Henry Reynolda left Auckland by the Tarawera on Wednesday, 4th, to hold a conference with exporters of butter in Sydney and Melbourne, with a view to adjusting a tariff for the auctioning and distribution of colonial produce in the London market. He leaves for Home by the Liguria. Alarmist rumoura of a loathsome disease' in a herd of cattle at Puhoi, Auckland, lately appeared in the Auckland press, and in order to investigate, the Agricultural department instructed Mr Gilruth to vinit the district. Tho investigation disclosed nothing worse than » couple of tumours over the ayes of a bull and * cow respectively, there being no evidence of disease among we remainder oi the herd. Ia

hie report Mr Gilruth says :— "lt is difficult to account for the alarming rumours circulated concerning these cases and the other cattle in the district, unless the cause is, as has been suggested, that certain natural appendages to the bovine eye, noticed there for the first time by certain easily-alarmed individuals, have been mistaken for abnormalities. The rumours published in the Auckland press as to loathsome sores appearing on the body, along with rapid emaciation and resultiug in death, had no real foundation, md seem to havo arisen from a misunderstanding." In some parts of the Mount Benger district the rabbits are already imbued with an intuitive knowledge of the danger of phosphorised pol- j lard, indicating the necessity of reporting to some other me&oi of destruction for a season. The local correspondent of the Tuapeka Times writes: — "The pollard poison is not giving quite the satisfaction just now in this district that was expected from it. This, of course, is not because of any want of efficacy on its part, but simply because bunny, with bis fastidious tastes, does not seem to regard it with sufficient favour. Itseems to have temporarily lost its charm for him, and it is not doing the work of extermination according to expectations. But, curious to relate, I am told they are eating it up greedily on the Moa Flat estate, while aiound here, as I have already eaid, thoy turn np their ncs'S at it. It is strange that such likes and dislikes should exist among tbe rabbits in places not co far apart from each other. I hoard the other day of six men at Moa FUt station picking up 1200 rabbits in one'day l&st week. That was good work, and done by the pollard poison. The manager of Ormaglade station is laying toxa, I am told, with very good results." The Christohurch Press of the 3rd insfc. aaya : *• Two purebred Clydesdale etalliont, imported by Mr P. Davidson, of Tetnuka, were landed from tho tteamer Gotbic yesterday, and taken t* the quarantine island. Straurigg Duke, the elder of the two, is a bright bay with black poiufcf. He is five years and stands 17hd». He was bred by Messrs Black and Sons, of Strauripg Airdree. He ie by Young Puke of Hamilton out of Tibby, both of which h»ve won a number of prizes in the show ringi of Scotland. The other horse, though only a two-year-o'd, in a fine, well-grown animal, a»d rejoiaee in the name of Clydebaak. He was bred from purebred prize-winners by Mr D. M'Gillon, of CampbelltowD. The horses . remain in quarantine for U days. Mr P. MC>>rinack, of Chriitchurcb, as representing the owner, superintended the landing operations, which were carried out ■without » hitch." It was stated by the chairman at the anaunl meeting of the General Dairy Factory (Canterbury) that experts found that it was impossible to make butter of a uniform character unless the cream went through the process of Pnftearising and ripening in the manner wfcioh left the delightful flavour bo much sought aft-er m the Danish butter. These prowssM hid been successful in two leadiug dairy factories at Home, and, therefore, in asking the shareholder* to wpUce part of the plant at the factory with the appliances for Pasteurising »nd ripenirig the cream, they were not asking them to go in for another experiment, but to »tk>pfc » ey»tem which had passed ont of that stage into an accomplished success. It was aho recommended that a first-class manager should be •obtained from Home through the AgentGerreral. It was to this that the' directors looked for the fature «alvation of the faotory, and if the suggestion were carried out it would, lie -was sure, lift the company out of tho slough of despond into which it had fallen. The report fran adopted. A very peculiar disease is affecting the udders and teats of dairy cows in Nelson. When afftefced, the teats of tho cows beootne soft and similar to those of a cow sucked by a calf. The udder begins to dry up, and in a ftw d%ys the fl jw of milk ce&ees altogether. Land seems to be on the improve in Southland. We (News) h*>er that Mr Robert Marris sold his farm of 138 acres, on Mr Culhbert Cowan's Benmore estate, to Mx George Sutton. The price was somewhere about £8 10s per Acre. The Lyttelton Times of the sth says :— " To yesterday's Addington market Mr Mox Fiiedlandw sent in from his farm at Lyndhsrsfc a pen of his grand Hampshire Down wethers. They were scarcly jo heavy aB some which he has cent in this season, but none have been of better quality. There was animated competition for them, aud they were ultimately knocked down to Mr S. Philp, a Wellington butcher, at 33s a head. The Wellington people will tb.uß have an opportunity of seeing what sort of mutton can be produced on Canterbury grass. I notice, writes the Waikaka correspondent of toe Southland Times, that during tfae pMt few years a lirge number of farmers— l might cay coly the owner* of land— have taken to letting their laud each year to what are coemonJy called "croppers" — i.e., men who have just a team of horses aud a ploagh, and perhaps a dray, bjt who .generally own little tfte. Now thig cla6B is largely rewuitcd from tho rnnks of our road ccntractors, and kuow very little of farming ; ttie rtsultis that to find work for their teams in the season of the year when other kind of work is scarce, tfcey will take land for cropping purposoß at far bsyond its value. The real fanner, wh» p»ys the county taxes and is tied to his bit of land, is compelled to compete with these. The cropper is the life of many of the country auctioneer?, who mate money out of him in various ways— to wit, tfcey supply the cropper with horses and plant and negotiate a line of his crop and get a "ftub." ou his bit of county work, and this indirectly tends to cheapen the products of the soil, because the cropper is compelled to sell as soon ps this grain ib in the sack. Bat thii is not all ; the farmer is now doing away with his own teams and taking to hiring both men and hones when he requires them. Throughout this large district there are very few farmers who employ a man constantly; many who do not employ hands exoept at harvest t ; me are even talking of contracting their work then. This reluctance to afford direct employment is without doubt largely brought ab;>ut by ths ldbour legislation of recent years. To give you an example : I was in a blacksmith's shop recently. I had known the blicksmith for a good many jeus. He hivd started as an apprentice, and ended byg«-ttirgashop for himself by cheer hard work and scraping industry. Such examples are beacon lights and should be encouraged ; bat just fancy what a labourtinkering Government does when this same young pushing smith, wishing to get a man to help him, charges him 5», if you ploaso, and compels him to register his shop as a " factory" where workmen are employed ! Thesmith tells me that it seems an industrious man is taxed for beiDg snoh a fool as to try to start himself in life : that is just it. But dots it not look as if the fools are about tired of being taxed to support tho wiae ? It is openly avowed that a man is a fool to save anything for the future — •» The Government will provide for ua " is the general comment. Mr A. W. Legg, blacksmith, has (says the Clutha Lcador) shown us the first manufactured "furrow splitter," a new invention at H&kb he has been at work for sometime; and

which he has now patented in Great Britain, America, the colonies, &c. The splitter is a strong and simple attachment for ploughs, and can be set to any angle to split the furrow to any required depth. The splitting of the furrow will m%ke tho ground much easier cleaned, and will break all big clod*. As the furrow after being split will only be half the u^uil thickness, this will form a better seed bed and save much of the seed lost under the present system. The additional draught caused by the new invention will be but very trifling. Mr Legg is to be congratulated on his invention, which seems a very useful one, and no doubt will soon be iv request by all agriculturists. Since last Christmas two men have flint 2400 "brumbies," or wild horsts, in the Burnett district of Queensland. Their hides and hair have a good market value. Mr Thomas Grieve, of Bushy Park, has, according to the Southern Standard, invented an ingenious contrivance for manipulating poisoned pollard. Th'S new system of pollardpoisoning has for some time been admitted to be the moit effective, the only drawback being the danger and difficulty of preparing the compound and cutting it up into bait. By Mr Grieve 'a oontrivance this difficulty and risk, is reduced to a minimum. It consists o? two processes. In the first the dough is put through a pair of wooden rollers, and rolled ont idto a thin cake. It is then cut into small square? Urge enough for bait for the rabbits. Tho second process ib a separate apparatus. Messrs Lowdeu aud Maw, Matduca, are the makers of those machine, and have orders at present from Messrs M'Kell&r Bros, Glenura station, Balfour, Mr R. M'Keozie, Bonmore station, and others. The South Australian Mim'3t*r for Agriculture is arranging for a somewhat extsnsivo shipment of produce with the view of testing the Eastern markets. The shipment, which will be made in connection with the Hon J. L. Parfon'i visit to the E»«r, will leave by the steamer Menmuir. Several fictna have oo operated with the Minister. The consignment, which will amount to nearly 100 tops, will oons- : 6t of fljur, chaH, compressed hny, p'owrvci niiftt, to\p, preserved fruit, jam, homy, hlc», wino, brandy, olive oil, leather, bark, bacon, b'scuit*, and s%lt. The amount of dust ia fir«t-cUfs h&y is, says a contemporary, surprising ; recently from 22£cwt chaffed by an improved machiue 58ib of fine dust was sieved oak? Horsss era liable to form dust balls in the stomach, co that clem hay is desirable.

The Times in its spfci&l report on the condition of the British cereal crops, remarks : " It is a sorry story we hare to tell to-day, and a cb«erl«« record we have to disclose." It then proceeds to show that in connection with whe*t, barley, and oate, ont of 132 comparisons in not one single initanoe do the figures come up to those of a yeor ago. The reports reooived from various cmtres by The Times show that the condition of the field crops of Great Britain on July 1 was considerably belew ttie av.fage. We (Waimea I\ains Review) regret to learn thai Mr Folir O'NwU'a well-known blood stallion Dan Pedr« hss been ia tho "vet's." handi for the patt week, the symptoms being those of blood"pouoning. Anjthiog of a serious nature happening to the hors« would be a Ice* to horse-bteedeis at well as to the owcer.