NOTES ON RURAL TOPICS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2433, 31 October 1900, Page 6

NOTES ON RURAL TOPICS.

I hrtve received a letter from a South Can-

terbury farmer, asking for ■ information about the application of lime, and giving

Land.

his experience in this matter. I have returned his letter to the editor for, insertion, as it may be producii-ve of information for those who have had different experience in the results from liming. Some years ago I had a. similar letter from another South Canterbury farmer, who* had also tried liming in the usual manner, but with no apparent result, beneficial or otherwise. I may say that I have tried it also on several occasions for the purpose of reducing the sorrel pest, and found it of no use. A high British authorit5 r upon both practical and scientific agriculture &ays that notwithstanding the long established and almost universal use of lime it can scarcely be said that, even now, the exact nature of JfcG action is clearly understood, and that there are many points connected with the action of lime upon the soil which are .still obscure. The conflicting experience of .different farmers is probably owing to the fact that lime acts in such a number of different v ays and that the nature of the changes it causes in the soil is most complicated. Its action upon different soils is very dissimilar, hence the liming experience of fanneid in one part of the country seems contradictory to the results obtained by farmers in other part':. As a rule, however, there seems to be no question of the benefit of lime to the clay soils of Otago and Southland. I may tell "South Canterbury Farmer" that the plan he adopted is the usual one, but that a more orthodox method, which entails more labour, is to tip the quicklime out in small hcap?> over the land, cover with soil, and leave till t'ae moisture in the soil has slacked the lime and turned it to a fine powder, after which the heaps are spread and harrowed in. As the soil has no retentive power over lime, it soon sinks by reason of its weight and the washing down by rain; therefore, it should be only just covered at the first. "South Canterbury Farmer" says he is going to give lime another trial this season, and if so, I should advise him to .endeavour to get it fre3hly burned from the kiln, and &laok it on the land in the manner ,1 have described.,; Perhaps the last lot he had was stale, and in that ca3e would only act as mild lime in reducing the stiffness of the soil and making it more friable, less liable to puddle in wet weather, and less liable to cake in hard lumps when dry. But, as I pointed out in a recent reply to a query, it must be remembered that a large dose of several tons per acre forms a very, very small proportion of the whole bulk of surface soil, and therefore any noticeable mechanical benefits cannoc be looked for until several generations of farmers have been occupying the land, and giving an occasional application of lime. Lime is an indirect manure — that is, not a plant food in itself, but it tends to bring any hard vegetable matter that the soil contains into a state of more rapid decomposition and solution, so as to render it available p,s plant food at once. For example, hard, dry wheat stubble is of no manurial value when ploughed in, and requires to be buried in a moist soil for a year or more before it becomes rotten enough for its organic constituents to be dissolved and taken up by tlie plant roots, but lay the dry

Xi&nib Marking.

tion in foul premised, where blood-poisoning may bo contracted. Blood-poisoning is terribly fatal and far-reaching, and may arise irom a trivial cause, such a3 using a dirty knife or ear-punch, and too much attention cannot be paid to perfect cleanliness in everything that comes into contact with wounds made in operating. Lambs are often lost at tailing-time by not being mothered at once, especially when done in large lots, and turned out of the yards late in the day. The lambs being stiff and sore, are unable to make any effort to find their mothers and these, being hungry, rush away to graze until it is too dark for them to find their lambs. It is a great advantage in every way to do this work in temporary pens put up on or near where the sheep are grazing, and thiE practice is now followed by all who possess any knowledge of sheep-management. It is not wise to operate m a hot, roasting nor'-wester, nor in the heat of a very hot day, but when there are a large number to do it is not convenient to avoid xmsuitable weather on all occasions. The more quietly the flock is yarded the better and much dogging and harrying of tlie sheep i> to be avoided. We frequently hear of some very big percentages, and if all reports could be relied on it would appear as if there .will probably be enough lambs to glut the London market. I find that many yarns about extraordinary high percentages must be taken with a pinch of salt, there being a tendency to romance about this matter much in the same way that fishermen do about their baskets of fish after, a clay with the rod. Somo sheep-farmers make a piactice of drawing off all trie diy and barren ewes before collecting their percentage of lambs, and that, of course, makes a vast difference in the result. On the whole, I believe there^has been a good yield of lambs in the majority of districts and if the season is favourable tor the growth, of plenty of feed there will be a good return from our fat lambs a few months hence, besides enough being kept on hand to replace the old ewes. The high pries that has prevailed for breeding ewe& has not been a good thing for every tanner, for a great many settlers who took up land in the autumn found great difficulty in stocking their land with the capital at their disposal. The colony as a whole is undoubtedly understocked, and if the summer should prove to bo moist and feed plentiful, the good lambing will probably not make much difference in the price of sheep. By a Home paper just received I &cc that in June last there were 10,350,000 ewes kept foi breeding in the United Kingdom last year, and at the same time there were 10,278,000 lambs. These returns were .taken on June 4, corresponding to December 4 with us, therefore all the lambs would be on the farms and it appears, then, that there was very nearly 100 per cent, of lambs all over the Kingdom, on an average. At the same time there were 6,000,000 other sheep above one year old, the total number of sheep being 26,592,000— one million less than the previous year.

In 1897 there were 2,102,000 acres of wheat

giown in Great Britain, but; British Grain in 1898 there was a decrease Statistics- of 100,000 acres, and I see

that the returns for last year show a further decrease, the area being only 1,845,000 acres. Therefore, in two years the area has fallen off 256,000 acres, which is nearly equal to our total area of wheat; but the wiTeat yield of Britain and New Zealand together is a mere fraction of the total product of the world, and has but ,little influence upon themarket price, I remarked in a recent ac^B

stubble in alternate layers of quicklime and moist earth and in a few weeks the whole heap will become a- nice rotten compost. Buried bones, too, give off their manurial ingredients very slowly, but when sulphuric acid is poured upon them they form superphosphate which is rich and quick-acting. It is not always possible to apply lime in the right manner and at the best time, owing to unfavourable weather interfering with the work. I know a case just now in which a farmer had carted two trucks of lime on to his land in heaps, when a week's rain set in and not only slacked the lime, but turned ifc into a soft paste, which will be difficult to spread evenly. In that condition it cannot be of so much benefit as if properly slacked, and it is my opinion that the more caustic it is the more beneficial its action. There was a very good article in the leading farm column of the Witness two weeks ago, in which the writer advocated the use of ground lime in small doses in place of the larger applications of slacked lime, but xmtil the lime-burners provide machinery at the kilns and crush the lime shells for the public, the use of ground' caustic lime cannot be generally adopted. 1 should say that ground lime could be qviickly and cheaply applied, at the rate of 15cwt or a ton per acre, by means of the ordinary broadcast sowers in calm weather, and then a stroke of the harrows would cover it sufficiently. Mr Thos. Brydone is a strong advocate for the use of lime, and his paper on the subject which he read at the recent conference in Wellington is worth perusal by all interested in the subject. A few years ago Mr Geo. Gray, lecturer on chemistry at the Lincoln College and honorary consulting chemist to the Canterbury A. and P. Association, read a paper upon "Soil Fertility" at the Winter Show. in that paper he refeired to the loss in manurial constituents sustained by the soil of New Zealand by the production of all the grain, meal, and wool exported from the colony. He set forth in a table of figures the estimated loss to the soil, explaining that the figures given must be considered to be only approximate, in consequence of insufficient data. He added that the numbers given were probably lower than the actual amount of loss, but sufficiently near to give a fair idea of the> extent to which our soil suffers by the production of the produce which is exported, leaving nothing to be ueturncd to the soil except by artificial means. Frozen meat robbed the soil of 2,274,9071b of nitrogen : 1,788,2641b of phosphoric acid, 203,0001b of potash, and 2,000,0001b of lime. Wool took eight millions and a-half pounds of nitrogen, 116,0001b of phosphoric aeicl. 4,64-O,oOOlb of potash, and only 116,0001b of lime. There was so little wheat exported in that year, 1895, that the figures are trifling, but oats went away with 1,691,0001b nitrogen, half a-million pounds of phosphoric acid, nearly as much potash, but only 80,0001b of lime. Peas and beans took more than half a-million pounds of nitrogen, but very little lime. In that year the total exports weighed about 250 million pounds, and deprived the land of 24 million pounds of fertility, of which two millions and a-quarter were llimye y and 13 million pounds were nitrogen. The> loss of lime amounted to a little over 1000 tons, but our exports now must walk of? with much more lime than that. According- to this table each 651b carcase takes one pound of lime from the so" There is not much risk of losing lambs through

castration and decking if they are done before they get too big, and if care is taken to avoid performing the opera-

that is an important crop in Britain, ,and on reference to the returns I see that the rate of increase in barley acreage is equal to the decrease in trie wheat fields. Last year there were all but 2,000,000 acres in barley. Oats have increased in area, also, and now stand at 3,026,000 acres, an increase of more than 100,000 acres since 1897, The total number of cattle has also increased in each of the last three years, but there has been a small decrease in the number of cows in milk and in calf, the present number being 2,620,901, which is 50,000 less than the previous year. Pi^s are nearly as numerous as cattle. AGRICOLA.