NOTES ON RURAL TOPICS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3869, 8 May 1928, Page 12

NOTES ON RURAL TOPICS.

Irrigation In Central Otago.

The Committee of Irrigation appointed by the Government, and

at present on tour investigating the problems facing settlers in Central

Otago, apparently has a difficult row to hoe. There is perhaps no wholesale objection to the personnel of the committee, but there is no getting away from the fact that settlers have a grievance inasmuch as they consider (with some cause) that they have no direct or balancing representation on the .committee. It is to be hoped, however, that irrigators will modify their opposition,_ and enable the committee to function in the best interests of the large areas commanded by water in Central Otago. The committee has, I firmly believe, full intentions of making an effective overhaul of the problems as they affect irrigators, even if certain members of the committee have been more or less responsible for the erection of some of the hurdles w'hich at present block the fairway.

The Determination ot Sex.

The effect of service early or late dur-' ing the period or neat

upon the sex of progeny has been one of the many problems studied at the Edinburgh University

Animal Breeding Research Department during the year covered by the annual report recently issued. Many breeders and obstetricians are of the opinion that the proportion of males is smaller with the increasing interval between the onset of heat and conception following service, and. that conception, late in oestrum favouis the production a female.' In the rat it -is possible to determine fairly exactly the onset and cessation of the oestrous cycle. Lt is therefore easy to ensure that mating takes place at the time desired. Experiments on rats showed that the females were most recentive during the first three hours of oestrum; that pregnancy did not usually result when mating occurred later; and that there seemed to be a slightly larger percentage of males from service and conception early in the heat period. Another line of investigation is in regard to various def ts of horses which are believed to be hereditary. Pedigrees have been tabulated of all traceable stallions rejected by the Board of Agriculture in Scotland and the Ministry of Agriculture in England. From an incomplete analysis of these there is reason to believe, states the report, that stringhalt, roaring, sidebone, ring-bone, shivering, and defective generative organs are inherited. The precise mode of inheritance of these defects are not known, but it is believed that they are recessive in character, and that some, at least, are governed by the operation of only one pair of factors. Pedigrees of wall-eyed and blind foals also suggest that these defects are hereditary.

Silver Fox Farming.

Readers must not imagine that I am adyo- | ratine, the introduction

Catlllg. UIC IUU UUULLIUU of foxes or anything of j that pature. No, but it i is interesting neverthe- I

less to learn of the’prices realised nowa- | days for good skins at,. Home. A correspondent tells us that/at a recent sale 3202 skins were offered/and 230 of them, or 7.18 per cent., Brought over £5O, whereas during the past two or three years only about 3 per- cent, of the skins offered at the winter sales have brought over £4O. The volume of skins offered is about the same, but the demand in Britain is keener. It is partly due, how- ; ever, to the fact that the average quality ; of skins offered is better than in- previous years. As has been the case in recent years, the majority of skins offered are from Canadian ranches, and include the I best Canadian skins. It is possible that, ‘owing to the slump in, the United States, | some of the finest American skins have also been sent to Londdn., Skins from British farms, though small in numbers, are already gaining in reputation. While only slightly over 7 per; cent; of the best Canadian skins brought over £5O at the Hudson’s Bay sale, the consignment sent to the sale by Saltoun Fur Farm (excluding from the average - one skin without a •head, one black skin/and one slightly silver skin) actually-averaged £5O. Further /our correspondent tells us that, of the

three-quarter silvers sold only seven fetched a higher price than the highest Saltoun skin; of the half silvers only 54 (including the six skins which realised prices varying from £lOO to £245) were above the best Saltoun skin; and of the quarter silvers only 13 skins were above the highest priced Saltoun skin, in their respective classes. This speaks volumes for the quality of British-bred foxes, when it is realised that during 1926 (the latest year for which statistics are available) 37.912 silver foxes were born in Canada, and that the pick of their skins are sold in London.

Slr Harry Lauder as Farmer.

A writer in the Graphic recounts some of Sir Harry Lauder’s ex-

periences ae a sheep r farmer on his property of Glenbranter, on Loch Eckside, now disposed of

to the Forestry Commission. “ I don’t think,” he writes, “ Sir Harry Lauder during his comparatively brief experiment in farming ever had a chance to show his ‘ beasties ’ at the ‘ Highland.’ though that was his ambition. He had many of the essential qualifications for a Highland laird—a good leg for a kilt, rococo taste in walking sticks, a ‘ guid conceit of himself ’ —and soon acquired the professional touch for prodding kine on the rump and the right deportment for walking out with a collie. But there | is no hobby in which a town man can lose i money quicker and more mysteriously than in sheep farming, and Sir Harry was a babe at the business. He- has just been confessing that he thought himself lucky to get out of his little Argyll estate, Glenbranter, with his leather leggings and a haunch of venison to the good. I had a look over Glenbranter the other day; it is now the property of the Forestry Commission, which is covering it with pine trees. I learned all about Sir Harry’s ill-luck with blackfaced sheep. He had to buy thousands at what is called ' hefting price ’ when he bought the property—that is to say, at least at £1 more per head than they would fetch in the open market —the theory of the Scots law being that a sheep, is worth at least 20s more on the hill it was born on and is acclimatised to than a sheep introduced from other grazings. Sir Harry got the shock of his life when he started to sell sheep—sometimes at 'lO bob a leg,’ as he pathetically puts it himself. His essays at afforestation were literally ‘ nipped in the bud ’ by ravenous blackcock and red deer in winter. Pedigree Clydesdales of high price were acquired for work which could have been better done by the sturdy little Highland ■ garron ’ pony; and the. aristocratic Ayrshire milch cows were utterly out of place in a lonely e-len with no opportunity . for economic dairying.” AGRICOLA.