AGRICULTURAL AND PASTORAL NEWS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2849, 21 October 1908, Page 21

AGRICULTURAL AND PASTORAL NEWS.

! An Ayrshire cow, Rena Rose, has been )r.dmitted to the Ayrshire Herd Book on proof being shown that last year she yielded 15,0721b of milk, yielding 751!b of Gutter. Thi3 is surely a record jield of milk.— Scottish Farmer. 1 Red water and ticks aTe reported to bs troublesome in the Cape Bive r district, '. (Queensland. One station is stated to have lest 600 head of cattle from red water. Horse thieves arc also reported to be numerous in view of the Indian shipping sea- , ison. It is reported that tho crops at Lincoln College, Canterbury, and the surrounding , district are doing exceedingly well this seacon; in fact, th;y are said *o be in a, better and more forward condition for this , time of year than for many previous seaeons. France boasts of having 5,000,000 landowners, but the problem of rural deoopulation— not to speak of the more; serious depopulation, caused by "artificial restric : tion " — is facing tha authorities there too. The latest scheme for meeting this • difficulty is not on the lines of '"three acre 3 and a cow," but is described by the phrase " half an acre and a homestead." A sum of £4.000,000 has been put aside by the State for the purpose of giving leans at ' 2 per cent, to assist in Iho purcha&3 of p'oto of land, of about half an acre each, on which) to place the new occupying propi ietors. In Franco, whore vines ripen in ti.3< open, these small plot 3 may bo a ' i=ueee*>. %1 Experimenting seme years ago," writes ■ Mr H. F. Blanchett in a Marlborough papor, '" I discovered that wool ashes j would instantaneously take out fro^t, no j matter how severe, and leave the growing plant as good as, if i.ot better than, before. I have- many times tried tin?, and have never known it to fail. The method of application is as follows : — The ash-s must ■be dry from the fire. If they hate boon to get damp they are not half co effective-, and ence wetted are u«e!ess. J Then before the sun gets on the potato? take tho bucket oi ashes under the i?ft wm, and with the right hand •thoroughly du-3t the plants as ycu. walk •between the rows. In this way four of us i have done a quarter of an acre in 20 I minutes, and the land has* crunched uncW • our feet during the operation. The potatoes look unsightly until there has been a shower, as the ashes, adhere, but after the rain jhe leaves will be a .darker greon, have more gloss, and the plants cenerally have a stronger appearance. I think the effect would be tire same -on tomatoes efc, ■but I have not proved this. It i B quite interesting to watch frc-t di-appear from )ft plant, v, hich it begin* to to the instant the ash is applied, and is gene, in a few seconds.'' 1 Every fanner and fiairvman krows how much annoyance and irritation i? caused "to his animals thirhijr hot n--eather by flies, and a good though partial remedy is to whitewash th!^ wall*, of the >hcds and etalla ence or twice a jear. It has been

1 found that flies have a great objection to the colour blue, and if the shied* are washed with a blue_ wash the flies will quite desert the place. T-he following instance is reported in the Journal d'Agriculture Pratique: "A farmer had 170 cows housed in different .sheds; they were pestered with flies, but he observed that in one shed, the walls of which, were a blue tint the cows were not worrfro. He therefore added a blue colour to the lime with which he washed the walls of his buildings, and from that tim® the flies have deserted nis buildings. The following formula is used by him for the wash:— To 20gal of water add 101b of slacked lime and lib of ultramarine. The washing is done twice ■during the summer." Something in the shape of an onion famine prevails in Timaru at the present time, and (says the Herald) the price of this article of diet has advanced in prico during the past month, from £12 to £17 5s per ton. Occasional importations come to hand from Australia, but these are not nearly sufficient to meet the demand. A Timaru merchant was offered a consignment of onions at £14 per ton a month ago, and be is now regretting that he did not take it. The prices above referred to are all wholesale prices. Mention was recently made in the Pastorahsts' Review of a ewe having had five lambs, all of which died. Some years ago, on a small sheep station at Waiheko Island, a ewe had five lambs, all of which lived to be steep. Two were left with the ewe and three were hand-fed. A South Canterbury horsewoman has entered for one of the jumping competitions for hunters at the Timaru A. and P. show, and intends to ride her "own hunter.