NOTES ON RURAL TOPICS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2356, 20 April 1899, Page 5

NOTES ON RURAL TOPICS.

I have heard of some big returns at the threshing machine lately, especially Big in the case of oats. One farlietiirns. mer acquaintance threshed

out 90 bushels of clean oats from a ten-acre field of choice land, while another threshed nearly 100 bushels to the acre off a much larger field. These figures are frequently touched in the south in a favourable season on good soil, but of course such yields are the exception, not the rule. I have known ]10 bushels to the acre to be taken off what was naturally very pooi'soil, but which had been, enriched by mustering sheep upon it at shearing time for a number of years. The question naturally arises : Whether does it pay better to grow a medium or a heavy crop? The answer ought net to be far to seek, as there are many arguments that might be advanced in favour of a heavy crop. The preparation of the ground for a heavy crop does not entail much more labour, if any than that for a poor crop. I mean that it takes the same amount of ploughing, harrowing, etc. The cost of harvesting is a little greater, but the extra yield fai more than pays for that. The only serious item of extra cost is manuring, as it is after all only a question of manure, for a heavy crop can be grown upon very poor land provided enough manure is added. My experience is that it pays to manure, while to crop without manure is the farmer's shortest cut to the bankruptcy court. But manuring must' be done with circumspection, and according to the farmer's means. If he can only afford lewt of some good chemical manure per acre to start with, then my advice is to use it, and the chances are that he will be in a position to double the quautity the following season. If he has farmyard manure available, then put all- that he can gather upon the land. The experience of those who follow turnips with bats or spring wheat proves the value of manure, for the turnip crop always leaves a residuum of unarfsimilated manure in the ground. If the land is required for a cereal crop, when manuring for turnips a mixture of guano or chemical manure and bone dust should be used. The latter will enrich the land foi the succeeding crop. There is no reason why every farmer should not grow 100 bushels of oats to the acre if he chooses to do so; it is all a question of manure.

One of the English farm papers contains a letter from a New Zealand Bogus farmer about the bogus aucItidding-. tions of stock or " trotting "

as it is usually called here. The writer of the letter seems to think 'this practice is very injurious to the pale of stock, and says that many people will not" venUire to bid at all at stock sales, but hang back on the chance of doing business afterwards privately. He expresses an opinion that it will never be stopped except by drastic legislation, by which a heavy penalty can be imposed upon any auctioneer who wilfully runs up stock to the owner's reserve by means of bogus bids. The writer of the letter under notice thinkß that auctioneers should be required to give the vendor's name in all cases, and if the bidding fails to reach the vendor's reserve the auctioneer must name the last biddei, whe shall have the right to claim the lot at the owner's reserve. Besides the practice complained of on the part of auctioneers, it is also the custom for owners of stock to run up the price or to get friends to run it for them, so that the public is just as likely to bo deceived in this way as they are by false bids on the part of the knight of tho hammer. I quite agree with the writer of the letter under notice that the "trotting" is a very foolish and undesirable practice, and is detrimental to tho auction sales of stock, but I cannot see how legislation is going to put a stop to it, nor do I believe that our legislators, fond as they are of grandmotherly legislation, will ever attempt the lask. It would be impossible lo stop it unless public opinion was co strong against it that neither auctioneers nor vendors' friends would dare to run up the price by means of bogus bids. I do not see how it can be proved that a man is false or genuine in his "apparent desire to buy stock. If I nod to the auctioneer who is to say whether I am making a bid with the genuine intention of obtaining the stock or merely bidding to oblige the owner? Is everybody to make a solemn declaration before the sale opens that neither by word, nod, nor jvink shall any bid be made that is not bona fide and genuine? We have inspectors enough without providing the powers that be with a good excuse for the appointment of a few more. " Trotting " is a foolish practice which does no good to anybody, as nobody but the rawest new churn is deceived, by it; neither for the same raason does it do much harm. Those who are in the habit of attending auction sales can usually tell with half an eye when the auctioneer is on the trot, and the inexperienced ones had better employ an old hand to bid for them or refrain from buying on the nod till they have acquired tho knack of spotting the little tricks of the trade. In a footnote to the Now Zcalpnder'H letter the editor says that bogus sales* at auction rings are not ho common in Britain as they seem to be in New Zealand. In the

pedigreed stock trade, he says, there are a few glaring cass of bogus bidding, but not so much in the sale of store stock.

I see that the Wairio correspondent of th« Witness refers to a plan that Stack Covers. h as recently come into vogue of merely rounding up the centre of a stack and putting on a jute cover instead of the usual head of grain. Thia is an expeditious and safe way of finish" ing a stack, and I believe it will in a short time become general, especially in a catchy and showery season. The jute webbing it' very cheap and durable, and with care will last a good while, its durability depending, ot course, upon the time it is exposed to the weather. I always have a couple of sheets of this kind Byds long and 6yds wide, and when leaving an unfinished stack at night it can be at once made secure against a week's rain by filling up the heart and covering with, a jute sheet. They are very handy too for covering bags of chaff or sacks of grain when the mill knocks off at night, or if sudden storms of rain come on. With a little straw underneath to keep the sheet from touching the sacks it will keep out as much rain as an expensive tarpaulin. The wet causes the texture to shrink, and thus closes up the pores of the sheet, as it were, but after atime the fibre becomes weather-worn and loses this power, and then the sheet is Jesa useful, but as long as it is sound and free from rents it is very reliable as a rain-turner. The web can be bought int any length, and is about 2ft wide. It can be stitched together on the farm into any sized sheet?, or the vendors will get it clone by a saihnaker for a trifling sum. I think my sheets, Bx6yds, cost 15s each, ready stitched together. When this sort of thing is used as a- permanent covering for stacks 'it requires to be very securely tied or weighted, or the wind will tear it to rags. A sheet the size I have mentioned i 3 equal to one made from 27 sacks which cost, at 5d each, lls 3d, ' and I am sure it is well worth 3s 8d to slit open 27 sacks, sew them together again, and put tie-ropes at each corner. Moreover I think that the material of which the web is made is stouter and stronger than that used in making the ordinary Calcutta corn sacks.

For a permanent covering T suppose thatch is cheaper than a jute cover. Thatching. Say the latter costs 15s, and

is done for after being on a stack from now till spring-time, about five months. At that rato a coat of thatch which can bo put on a similar sized stack for about 9s is cheaper, but then it must be remembered that the jute cover can be put on immediately the stack is finished, whereac it may be a week or two before the stack can be thatched, and in the meantime p. hegvy rain may fall and get into the crannies of the roof and delay the thatching till the stack has had time to dry again. It does not answer to cover a stack with thatch while thero is any wet in the roof sheaves, as by so doing mildew and rot will probably set in ere the moisture, can escape through the thatch. A gale of wind is very apt to knock thatch about a good deal if not properly put on and well secured. I find that it is a good plan to sprinkle water over the thatch before putting it on. It then pets together very closely and the wind cannot do it much harm. Pegs are not necessary for a sheaf stack, as the thatch ties can be fastened tc the sheaf bands. The old Scotch plan of securing the thatch by means of numerous straw ropes is now seldom seen. If it is intended to thatch, the sooner it is done the better, but, unfortunately, lack of suitable straw is often the cause of delay. However, a wellbuilt stack can stand a long time without sustaining any damage worth mentioning, especially if all the flag and weeds are raked out of the roof sheaves.

Although the older generation of agricultural chemists recognised the value Potash of potash as a manure, it was Manuring. not until comparatively recent times that it came to be considered an indispensable agricultural manure. For one thing, the only known source of notash was wood ashc3, and that was a rapidly diminishing quantity. But in 1857 all that was changed by the discovery of a practically inexhaustible supply of potash salts in the province of Saxony in Germany. The potash salts were accidentally discovered while working the salt mines of Stassfurt. Leibig investigated the find, and made known to the world the value of potash salts in^griculture. From that day potash came to be recognised as an invaluable manure for the farm, and the demand has gone on steadily increasing until it is estimated that over 600,000 tons per year are employed for crop-raising. .Latter-day science has demonstrated that the value of potash as a manurial agent does not arise from its assimilability by the plants direct so much as from itp favouring microbe development. The older agricultural chemistfi were unaware of this, and so they under-estimated the value of potash as a manure, seeing that most soils contain sufficient to supply the salts found in plants. But the modern farmer is placed in possession of the knowledge that he must have his soil organisms in abundance,

and that potash is essential to their growth in the soil. Thus only can the cumulative fertility of the soil be maintained. Experience has proved that potash is extremely favourable to the legumincs, so that wherever these are grown potash should be added to the soil. The very latest pcientifio and practical discussion of this question has proved the value of potash. It is well known that nitrogen is indispensable for the legumines — clovers, peas, beans, etc., — and that nitrogen is stored in the soil wherein these grow by parasitic miorobes attached to the rootlets. Consequently the practice of the past proves that too great store has been laid by nitrogen in manures and too little to potash. It was known that nitrogen was necessary ; but it was not recognised that the nitrogen-storing microbe could only perform its useful functions in poils carrying a fair percentage of potash. The " finger-and-toe " disease in turnips is paid to yield to a moderate dressing of potash Falts. In many directions potash is a most valuable manure, although farmers outside of Germany have been slow to recognise its value. In the ten years from 1882 to 1892 the use of kainit in Germany mci eased 12fold, while the export to other countries had not increased by half the amount exported ten years previouc. The results have proved so eminently satisfactory in Germany that the farmers now use kainit freely. The fact that the demand in Germany for potassie manures has increased so rapidly should convince tho rest of the world that practice has proved the .value of potash as a manure.

Most elaborate experiments conducted throughout England and Experiments Scotland have proved the poIFith Potash, sition of potash as a manurial

agent. On lands belonging to the Duko of Fyfe, where tho turnip crops had been destroyed for years by the " finger-and-toe" disease, potash was tried, with highly satisfactory results. First, ground lime wae applied at the rate of 30ewt to the acre, and that was followed by 4cwt of kainifc per acre, sown in the drill along with the seed. The result was a crop of 32 tons "per acre of yellow top turnips, and not a bad turnip was to be seen in the whole field. The land had been previously enriched by ploughing in 13 tons of clung pet acre. Concerning these experiments the North British Agriculturist says: — "It is beyond all doubt that as a stimulant to the plant and a destroyer of finger-and-toe potash salts are of the utmost importance." There are various compounds of potash in tho market, and even ground felspar has been, tried as a potassio manure ; but obviously its manurial value must be inflnitesimally small. The bes<- salts are kainit, potaesio chloride, and potassic sulphate. Kainit contains a material quantity of common salt, consequently it should be applied with caution, to coastal lands, which may be salt enough naturally. On land a little distance from the sea, however, kainit is an ex-

tremely serviceable manure*. It is a capital manure for a potato crop, not only because of the potash it contains, but also for the magnesia that enters into its composition. In fruit culture especially is the combination of polath and magnesia valuable, as any fruit grower can easily demonstrate by sampling the fruit grown after a good dresbing of kainil, and contrasting it with fruit from land merely dressed with lime. Magnesia is essential to the formation of soluble, diffusible, juicy compounds in fruit, and if lime has to replace magnesia, the character of tho fruit is materially impaired. For grain crops kainit is generally perviceable. Potash plays an important part in the formation of starch and all tho principal albuminoids. For the latter potash and magnesia are absolutely essential in tho soil. From its service in albuminoid construction potash proves a valuable turnip manure, in addition tc its property of destroying finger-ancl-toe. Tho lebuHs of innumerable experiments have fully established the value of potash in turnipgrowing, fruit culture, and general agriculture. Tho farmer who if. not slow to profit by this experience is wise in his day and generation.

Somebody or other is always testing some thing or other in Great

Testing Britain and Ireland. In the Merits of different parts of the WesPotntocs. tern districts of Ireland a

serie3 of tests have been carried on for some yeara in order to compare the relative merits of tho leading varieties of potatoes at present in cultivation. In 1897 the results showed that of the 10 varieties tested, the Up-10-d&te usually gave, the largest yield. Next in order came the Champion, and then the Irish White. The Beauty of Hebron did very well, and gave general satisfaction as an early variety. Of the late crop varieties grown' the Up-to-date gave by far tho most general satisfaction and the Champion came a good second. Last season, 1898. again found the Up-to-date at the top of the list, both as regards yield and general excellence as a cropper. In one case a crop of 21 tons per acre was obtained from this kind, and in three other cases the weight of the crop exceeded 19 ton?. Nevertheless, the report says that it was quite evident not one of the varieties tested was liked as much as tho Champion, which is still the favourite as a main cropper. AGRICOLA.