CURRENT TOPICS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17238, 19 April 1930, Page 11

CURRENT TOPICS

Expert Apple Packers

A tribute to the efficiency with which apple packing is done in New Zealand is contained in an Australian publication when reviewing the New Zealand and Australian export seasons. The writer says: "Efforts have been made improve packing in Australia. So far as New Zealand is concerned, it is generally acknowledged that those responsible for the export trade have nothing more to learn in that direction."

Ragwort Eradication. Officers of the Department of Agriculture hold the view that the cinnabar moth cannot yet bo looked to as n solution of the farmers' problem of keeping in check or eradicating ragwort. Release of the cinnabar motn in selected parts of the Auckland province was only commenced in the spring of 1028,, and, although it has been continued since, numerical increase to effective strength must be a matter of some years. A drawback which has been observed this year is that the pupa stage is reached before the ragwort has finished flowering, indicating that the later flowering crops of the weed would bo free from attack. The Government has decided to import quantities of chlorate of sodium, which their experiments suggest is an effective and reasonably safe medium of eradication and will entail continuous spraying. As showing how rapidly ragwort may spread over the country, it is stated that the seeds are known to have blown two hundred miles.

Testing Purebred Cows. Mr. W. M. Singleton, Director of the Dairy Division, r6viewing in the New Zealand Journal of Agriculture the testing of purebred cows for certificate, of record for 1020, notes that after a steady falling off each year since 1024 entries for the test are now on the increase. There were 2(5 more cows qualified for certificate in JO2O than in 1028, and figures for the peak month of the current season show 804 cows on test on farms of 272 breeders, as compared with 655 cows and 225 breeders for the highest month of last season. The average production of all C.O."R. cows granted certificates during the calendar year 1020 works out at 400.051 b. butterfat. The averages for the preceding four years were 407.021 b in 1025, 403.871 b in 1020, 400.501 b in 1027, and 400.531 b in .1028. From the commencement of the C.O.U. system to the end of 1020 first-class certificates of record have been issued to 0004 cows. In 1020 417 -first-class certificates were issued to cows qualifying for the first time, nnd 74 to cows which had previously gained a certificate, making a total of 401 certificates for the year. For 1028, 404 cows were tested. Breeds tested in 1020 wore: Jerseys, 307; Friesians, 80; Shorthorns, 20; Ayrshires, 8; Rod Polls, 3; Guernsey, 1.