NOTES ON RURAL TOPICS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2429, 3 October 1900, Page 6

NOTES ON RURAL TOPICS.

It is satisfactory to note that most of the country correspondents of the The Season Witness report favourable and weather for early spring the Crops. work, and that the cereal crops have been town earlier than usual, and under favourable conditions. An early sowing season is an advantage in several respects. First and foremost, it means on early harvest, and that gives more time for autumn cultivation between harvest and winter. It also means that the grain is harvested before the days get short, and thus has a better chance of good weather, and also requires less time for exposure before being fit to go into stack. When the spring- crops are got in early there is more time for sowing grass seeds, and also for preparing laud for turnips and other root crops. In fact, it doe« away with the rush that is often necessary in spring time in order to overtake all the pressing work that confronts the farmer atter a severe winter and long-deferred spring. A large area of oats was sown throughout the southern districts in August, and in most cases the blade was above ground by the end of September, which is fully a month earlier than is sometimes the case. The long tartarian oat is very suitable for late sowing, but mauy farmers do not view it with favour because it is not such a heavy yielder as pome other varieties. It has its good points, however, and the chief of these is its freedom from red rust when ripening late in the season. Another advantage it possesses is that the straw is very succulent, and is, therefore better for cattle fodder. When cut a little on the green side tartars make very sweet and nutritious chaff, and the superior nutritive qualities of the straw make up to some extent for the deficiency in the quantity of grain, especially when the sheaves are cut into chaff. Some time ago I referred to a new crossbred oat obtained by Messrs Garton Bros., of Cheshire, England. It is styled " King of the Tartars,**' was the result of careful cross-fer-tilisation, and is claimed to be a heavy cropper, while possessing al&o the good qualities of the ordinary tartars. I hoped to have had some seed for trial this season, but was not able to procure any. There seems to be a general opinion that oats are likely to be a good price next yoar, but I do not see what reason there is for thinking so. Thero are hundreds of thousands of sacks on hand still, and unless exports are pretty brisk between the present time and the coming harvest the market will not be cleared of old oats before the new crop is available. Nevertheless, there is no saying what may happen to improve prices in the course of a tew months, and the prospects of a fair price for the incoming- crop would be no better now if the present price was much better than it is. We have had many instances in which rosy expectations formed at seed time have been dashed at threshing time. The wisest plan is to sow the crops in their proper rotation and put them in as well as possible, and trust to Providence and good weather for a fair return for our outlay, remembering that he who expects little cannot be greatly dieap--pointed.

A discussion took place in our House of Representatives the other A Paternal day about the vote for carryGovernment, ing on the Department of Justice, and it was said that it is desirable that the prisons of the colony should be self -supporting as much as possible, but that the work done by the prisoners should not injure the outside tradesman. I do not well see how that can be unless the convicts live on hares and rabbits of their own catching and vegetables of their own growing. However, that is none of my business, and I have only referred to the matter in order to introduce a statement showing what a fatherly interest the Canadian Government takes in the welfare of the farmers of Canada. A short time ago it was found that there was a large quantity of binding twine on hand which had been made by prison labour. Instead of sending this into the mar-

ket it was decided to distribute the twine among the grain-growing farmers of the Dominion. Accordingly, a train of 100 trucks loaded with* binding- twine was despatched into various parts of the country, and reliable officers of the Department of Agriculture went out with it to supervise and regulate the di&lribxition of the twine at cost price. It is not said how much less the cost price of this prison-made twine was below the ordinary market price, but I conclude that it was a considerable concession to the farmers or the matter would not have been noticed. Canada is not a manufacturing country, nor has it large sheep runs, or cattle ranches, and therefore it must depend chiefly upon its agriculture and its timber trade. The Government, therefore, does well to deal kindly with the farmers and allow its Department of Agriculture plenty of funds for encouraging the chief industry of the Dominion.

When lambs are a few weeks old occasional

deaths* occur among them, Wool Balls due to balls of wool i' 1 collected in the stomach, and Lfiuibs. which, as it cannot possibly pass through the intestines, must have fatal results. On this account, it is advisable to clear all tags and hanging locks of wool from about the udder of breeding ewes 1 before lambing- timej as the wool swallowed by lambs probably gets into their mouths when they" rush their mothers for a drink and "draw a" lock of wool' into their mouths when ifhey catch the teat. Lambs often pick at each_ other's fleeces in a playful way, ond this may account also for wool in the Ftomacb, but 1 am inclined to think that most of the' mischief is done when suckling the ewe. 'When the ewes ' are breeched or crutehed in the autumn all loose locka should be trimmed from about the udder, and if this is done the wool will scarcely grow long enough by lambing time to cause the mischief referred to. Lambs are money nowadays, and it is a pity to lose them from a causo which can be avoided by exercising a little forethought. There is no que-tion about the stripping:? from the cow being riclier It Pays in fat than the milk first to - drawn, and it is not difficult Slrij) Clean. to understand how this is so. When miik is set in pans the butler fat rises to ihe top in the form of cream because it is lighter than the more watery part which we call skim milk. That being so, it ife only reasonable to suppose that the tame thine; occurs, only in a lefyor degree, while the milk is standing in tho udder before and while the cow is milked. It is only in butter fat, however, that the stoppings are richer, for it has been found that thore is no difference in the quantity of what is known as the "solids" in milk, and that fact is in agreement with the idea that the last-drawn milk is richer because tlie light portions rise to the Fiirface in the udder and therefore come away last. It really does not matter much what the explanation is so lone: as vre know that such is the case, and that it is important to take sufficient time to strip each cow quite clean, and thus get all the cream, for it is only the cream we want, seeing that most of the factories pay by the percentage of fat in the milk, -and not t>y the weight of the milk supplied.

The following facts are set forth as the repult of five years' study of A Few the matter by a Professor Useful Pacts, of the Society for Promoting Agricultural Science : — (1) A cow yields as rich milk as a heifer as she will as a mature cow.

(0) Ihe milk is as Tich in the first month of the period of laotalion as it will be later, except, perhaps during the last few weeks of the milk flow, when the cow was rapidly drying ofi. (3) There is liltlo difference ill seasons as to the quality of the milk. While the cows are at pasture the milk is neither richer nor poorer, on the average, than the milk yielded when the cows ate on the winter feed.

(i) The milk of a fair-sized dairy herd varies litlle in composition from day to day, "and radical variations in this respect should be viewed with suspicion.