NOTES ON RURAL TOPICS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2427, 19 September 1900, Page 6

NOTES ON RURAL TOPICS.

Variotis causes are advanced to account for the sudden and serious The Wool slump in wool prices of Slump. a few months ago. It is said

that when the boom was at ils highest, wool was fetching fictitious prices, which means, I suppose, tho prices given were beyond ils intrinsic value for making into fabrics, as the highest value of the manufactured article would not allow a fair margin io tho manufacturer. Another probable reason is that the colonial buyers at high prices could not be financed at Home, and large failures occurred which mu&t have had a depressingeffect upon the trade generally. The firstmentioned cause is quite sufficient alone to bring about the present unsatisfactory jiosi-

lion, for when any product is run up to a fictitious, value speculative buyers seem to go off their heads, and the result is financial disaster to speculators and then- backers. Manufacturer, too, finding they cannot place the finished goods at a price proportionate to the cost of the raw material immediately get panic-stricken and rush to extremes of caution and refrain from going into the market unril absolutely compelled. The same sort of thing hardened ten years ago, when buyers weic running all over the country here and buying wool on the sheep's backs at ridiculously high pi ices, causing them to cdme to grief when the day of leckoning arrived. Hoping to improve the situation the London wool brokers have decided to depart from the usual programme, in which sales would be held in September and November, and to have one more sale only this year, in October. There are 150,000 bales held over from last soles, and it Js proposed to catalogue 250,000 more, and thus limit the total lo be offered to 400,000 bales. It is hoped that this step will assist in f-teo dying the market by curtailing supplies, but the wool tiadc is so uncertain r.nd deceptive that it is impossible to form an idea as to piobable happenings. It may be that the course indicated will result in a lorge quantity being- held over, and thus come into the next year's pales of the new clip. Onefthing is very certain, and that is that those of us who decide to sell our next clip at the local rales cannot reasonably expect anything like the priceo going at the first sales list season for fine wool". Though the position may iinpiove during the next three months, there is no likelihood of those extraordinary prices leturning. Those who sold locally last seaFon got tho be:-l returns, and I -believe the number of boles sold in the colony exceeded that of any pievious year. When -,vool is high it is hie best policy to soil as &oon .is pos-f-ibJs and iurs no ri?ks of a falling-market, but when the market, opens flat there is a chance of au improvement Pie the wool gets to the London sales, and therefore it may pay beiler to ship.

In dealing with the cause? of present scarcity of fat sheep I omitted to Meat mention as an important frcExports. tor the excessively dry tea^on of 1897-98, when many good sli-eep were boiled down for lack of feed to keep them on. There was, also a great reduction in the number of ewes put to the ram in the autumn of "93, and, consequently, a ■smaller lamb 'crop than would otherwise "have been iho case. The winter following the drought •« as not severe, but there was a heavy mortality owing lo the scarcity of feed. We then first heard of moli^ses as an adjunct to straw-fodder, but in spite of all attempts at artificial feeding there was a great loss of both sheep and cattle in this island. Notwithstanding the di ought, we exported 1,756,000 carcases of mutton and 1,258,000 carcases of lamb, a' total ot nearly three million, valued ot one million and a-half sterling. Those figures were for tho year ending on March 31, 1898, and iL may be that the_ effects of the drought would be seen more in the exports of the following season for the numbers pent away during 12 months ending March 31, 1899, showed a decrease of 120,000 sheep and 145,000 lambs. The exports have more than the past year, for, according, to returns furnished by the secretary of the Agricultural department, there were-exportcd -during the year ended March 31 last, 2.066,805 sKeep and 1,272,348 lambs^ totalling over three million carcases -(besides legs and' pieced) valued at £1,700,000. As I remarked in a former note, there is every chance" of good prices for sheep while the London market can take our surplus at. present, ruling rates, but it must not be forgotten that our calculations may be seriously upset" by a severe drought at any time. It is thought that we are under-stocked now, but three months without rain would find us heavily stocked, and cause a tremendous drop in local values for store sheep. It is computed that there are something over eight million breeding ewes in the colony, and that, at an average percentage of 75, will mean about six million lambs, but that is a low estimate, and may be considerably exceeded.

The Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is said by Home papers An Over-zevilous to be getting very unpopular Society. because of its over-officioiis-ness and uncalle<~-for interference. The officers of the society seem to think that their positions depend upon the number of convictions they can secure, and no doubt such is the case, and therefore it can be readily imagined that they must make themselves a public nuisance when their interference amounts to persecution. All rightthinking and right-minded people deprecate the infliction of unnecessary pain upon any animal, and rejoice when a real cape of cruelty is brought to light and properly punished, but even these are often disgusted with the petty manner in which the business of the society is conducted in the Old Country, and it is very likely true that the society is becoming unpopular among the class which would loyally support it in any reasonable action. A Homo paper of good standing mentions a case in which a grocer's man was about to start on his rounds with the delivery cart. An inspector of the society comes along, says that til"? horse is lame and not fit to work, ond unless it is taken ovic of the cart at once he will proceed against the owner. The grocer denied that it was lame, but took it out of the shafts to avoid being dragged to court. He then got a qualified vet. to examine it and was assured the horse was quite sound, and he put it to work the next daj'. Later, he sued the inspector for the vet's fee and loss of the day's work of the horse, but was told by the judge that he had no case because be had been so weak as to obey the inspector without cause. The judge told him he should have taken no notice of an idle threat, and. that he must lose his case because of his own weakness. I remember hearing of a case in which a farmer, having three freshly-docbad colts in his stable, came acioss an inspector prowling about his farm. Ho ordered him off as a trespasser and ultimately had him turned off by force. He heard nothing more about the assault, the society being aware that their inspectors have no legal standing and cannot poke into private premises against the wish of the owner or occupier.

It is the usual custom to compute the value of a crop of roots from the Quality size and weight of the bulbs, of but it has frequently been Roots. proved that a medium-sized

' root contains more nutritive matter than a much larger one. All roots are composed of water and dry matter and it ib, of course, "the latter only which is of any value as stock food, the water contained in the roots being just the same as that in the creek or river with the exception of a very small percentage of sugar. A few years ago an eminent agricultural chemist read a paper before tho Royal Agricultural Society of Ireland, the title being "On the Undesirability of Growing Very Large Roots." The writer of this paper cited the results of a cry caicful iasts which had been made ia Ireland to show.

how the proportion of water and dry matter, varied in different cases. The tests were made with five varieties of seed, and in four, of these the average weight of the roots was from six lo seven pounds, while the nftli'grew enormous roots averaging 181b each. This latter was the mammoth long red mangel. The yield of this plot was at the rate of 70 tons per acre, Avhile No. 1 plot was 40 tons, thef; average weight of the roots being 5 6£lb. BiW note the difference in the quality ! The big roots had 924 per cent, of water, leaving onljr r 7i per cent, of dry nutritive matter, while the smaller roots had only 84- 1-3. per cent._ ofj_ water, leaving 15 2-3 per cent, of dry matters Now 40 tons of the latter contain f>£ tons of dry matter, and 70 tons of the L*j-, waterjrroots contain only 5^ tons of dry matter, sa that a farmer growing 10 acres of these latter would hove to handle 700 tons of roots to gefc 52 tons of nourishment for his stock, while of^ the smaller roots of better quality, 10 nrxeswould only weigh 400 tons and would give 62 tons of nutritious substances. N The average peicentage of water in roots grown in Britain.' is as follows : — Mangel 88, swede turnip 89j white turnip 92, Aberdeen yellow 90, carrots 87, parsnip 85, sugar beet 83. The deductions to be drawn from the foregoing resiilta are that Overgrown roots contain a very large proportion of water, are inferior in flavour, do not keep well, and, as a rule, give much less percentage of nutritive matter than weight foT weight of medium-sized roots. I should; explain xbat the difference in yield of 40 tons and 70 tons was not owing merely to dif-' ferent variety of seed, but also to the fact that; ' the ground was mere heavily manured and the plants more widely thinned than was the case with the others. There were two millions and a-lialf acres of turnips and mangels grown, in the United Kingdom last year and what an enormous, difference a slight variation in the nutritive quality would make in the total yield from bueh a large area. It must not be thought, however, that the absence of water necessarily means good, nutritive quality, for some roots are dry and spongy and abounding in woody fibre, which is of no more feeding value than waters-AGRICOL-A. s