THE HOME PADDOCK

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 53, Issue 3801, 28 August 1936, Page 4

THE HOME PADDOCK

CLASSIFICATIpN OF STOCK FOODS. Foods are classed according to their composition, and the substances which are utilised in the animal body may be roughly classified as: (1) Starchy and fatty materials, which produce fat and heat in the body, and are known as carbohydrates; (2) substances containing a large amount of nitrogen, commonly called proteins, and essential to the muscular growth and development of the body; and (3) mineral salts, which are necessary to body changes and the building up in the growing animal of the harder tissues of the body, such as bone.

All foods contain a combination of these materials to a greater or lesser extent, but some arg richer in one or more classes than others. Thus, most root crops, such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, turnips, arrowroot, artichokes, grains, such as maize, wheat, etc., and vegetables and fruit are very rich in starch and sugar, while linseed meals, oil cakes, etc., and unseparated milk, contain a large percentage of oil. Peas, beans, lucerne, clovers, milk, meatmeal, flesh, and other animal products have a big percentage of protein. Mineral matters are present to a great extent in milk, oats, mill offal, lucerne, peas and beans.

SOME USEFUL HINTS. Boring Gravel: When making boles in gravel, it is usually found that the stones move back as soon as the iron bar is withdrawn. Take a handful of grass and push it in the hole and continue with the bar—and you will find the stones keep outside.

A Safety Lock:—Here is a useful device for making sheds or henhouses more thief-proof. Bore a hole through the door directly behind the bolt of the lock (when the door is locked). If an ordinary nail is inserted in this it will be found that no key can open the lock as the nail holds the bolt fast. The nail is easily removable, and will not be noticed, as it appears to have been driven in, in the ordinary way, to fasten the board.

Rubber Bands for Lettuce:—lnstead of tying lettuces and celery, a good deal of time can be saved by putting rubber rings over them. These can be obtained cheaply by cutting an old motor-tube into rings about i incji wide, which can then be slid up the arm.. As each plant wants tying, just grasp the top with the hand with the rings on the arm and slip ring on plant with the other hand.

A Serviceable Home-made Brush: --A serviceable and cheap homemade brush can be made from a bunch of horsehair, a short length of copper pipe, and a piece of wire. Bind the horsehair in the centre with the wire, and then draw the wire with the folded horsehair following, into the pipe, leavihg enough of the hair outside to form the brush and for cutting. Hammer the piping, just below where the hair enters, flat and cut the hair to a level line.

The wire should be long enough to pass through the handle and then bent into a curve, forked back into the handle, leaving a loop outside which will be found convenient to suspend the brush from while out of use.

Such a brush is extremely useful for countless jobs on the farm and in the milking shed. They can be made in all sizes, so long as the pipe is of a size that the hair is held firmly, even before flattening.

A Cheap Saw Horse:—.Procure a stout packing-case and nail strong pieces of wood on to opposite sides. These are best slotted out into each other in the form of a cross, two ends above each end of the box. Fasten them securely with long screws which bite well into a piece of stout wood inside the box. To give sufficient stability the box is filled with earth, stones or ashes.

Breaking Binder Twine:—When taking out the binder to begin the season’s cutting, the first acre is usually made difficult by string breaking owing to rust on the needle and other parts.* If a small quantity of machine oil, tractor-sump oil will do, is poured in the centre of the first ball of twine, the trouble is completely cured.