FARM AND DAIRY.

Taranaki Daily News, 13 November 1920, Page 11 (Supplement)

FARM AND DAIRY.

NOTES. ! (By Husbandman.) ' Messrs Armour, the great meat people, have adde a building ten storeys high to the Chicago plant, which is to be used for cold storage. It has a capacity of nearly 23,000 tons, and the cost was £400,000. Few sheep, are likely to be treated in Queensland this year, as the uncertainty of obtaining freights has made the meat companies stand off mutton treatment. In the north sheep are quite a glut in the market. In Townsville hindquarters of good mutton have been offered retail at aid per lb, and forequarters at 3Jd. Eecently a note in the Sydney Mail drew attention to the report that there were very large supplies of unsold crossbred, wool in Argentina. This is confirmed now by a late cable message to the effect that the Argentine Government is having difficulty in disposing of the accumulation of low-grade wools. They are prepared to sell it on long terms at reasonable figures. This is not good reading for Australia, and apparently the only thing which will keep the price of crossbreds good in this country is the fat lamb trade and the fat stock market. ■

Wool prices are causing a great deal of concern to those producing and dealing in this valuable commodity (says the Toronto Mail). There is an excess of low-grade wool in nearly every country in the world, and quotations are low, with rarely a bid. To add to the confusion American woollen companies are closing down for aa indefinite period, despite the fact that raw materials are so cheap. It is said that labor is the chief cause of this decision. Canadian mills are still busily engaged, with plenty of business in sight for months to come.

A big sale of bullock? is reported from the Argentine, which is corning to be the place where big things are done in the cattle line. One of the freezing companies bought 12,000 bullocks at 30 cents per lb, equal to nearly £45 per head. It was estimated that the dressed weight would average 7501b. The cheque for this little deal would have amounted to over half a million. This is claimed as a world's record, the stock being sold in one line to one company. The United States Department of Agriculture forecasts a maize crop of 3000 million bushels. This is only the third time such a largo yield has been secured or forecasted. The total wheat harvest, spring and winter crops, is estimated at 790 million bushels. The official estimate for Canada for 1020 is 200 million bushels; so with Argentine exporting also there will be a large amount of wheat going to Europe this year from the two, Americas.

When aeroplanes became so useful during the war imaginative persons half jestingly prophesied that they would bo splendid for big stations. A man could "boundary ride" a very big run in a few hours and see that everything was right. This is coming true to. some extent, for a big grazier in Queensland has purchased a machine for working his pastoral properties, keeping in touch with the various stations much more easily than under any other method. Probably there will be big changps in this direction in the next few years. How useful would such a machine be to a drover to spy out the land, finding where the grass and water were best.

A very fat Durham bull was slaughtered in England, and its dressed weight was only 4001b short of a ton. Beef is Is fid per lb in England, so that would make the carcase worth about £l4O. Whether bulls are sold as beef or as sausages in England we do not know, and as long as the consumer is in equal ignorance no harm, is done. In our country bulls, rams, and old ewes change after death by the agency of butchers into quite different articles. They are as Nature made them when sold, and the country producer gets their true market value; but after they pass over the magical butchers block they are metamorphosed into highpriced beef, mutton and lamb. There is a growing trade between New Zealand and Java in dairy cattle, sheep and poultry. We have not heard much of the dairying industry in Java; but they appear to have heard of the merits of the Friesian cattle in that populous centre. One would think that a tropical country such as that could not do much in the line of butter manufacturing, for export, anyhow. The Japanese, are also importing from New Zealand, Romney Marsh sheep, as well as merinos. The Romney might do well there; but it will be' a surprise if merinos do—especially New Zealandbred ones.

The Bradford Wool Record speaks highly of a shipment of Tasmanian merino wool and fine, crossbred which arrived in England in June. Comment is made that Tasmania appears to be reducing her output of fine merino and paying attention to the production of fine crossbreds. No doubt the climate conditions are favorable to the growth of exceptionally high-class crossbred wool, just as it is favorable for the production of extra, line merino. But with the big supply of crossbred in the world and the likelihood of great demand at good prices" for extra line merino wool, Tasmanian flockmasters are likely to get back to the merino again pretty smartly. A practical method of helping returned soldiers was evolved by Bowen (Q.) Repatriation Committee, which secured the lease of Scart Water cattle station, 130 miles distant. It comprises 2,j0.(K)0 acres and has been stocked with cattle given by station-owners and others in the district. Three thousand pounds have been spent on improvements, comfortable buildings having been erected for the employees, all of whom are returned soldiers, who are paid (lie award rates. At present there are 1500 head of cattle (Shorthorns) and thirty horses on the property, with a stud of purebred Shorthorns. The trustees have power to deal with the property and stock, and it is hoped in time to dispose of cattle to returned men taking up land. A feature of the English Royal Show was the success in the .show ring of stock bred from 2000-gallon Friesians. Three of these phenomenons were represented by their progeny, and one obtained first in her class, while the two others -were eacli second, showing that in the" British Friesian breed very high yields do not impair constitution on the dual-purpose. Recent experience in England has proved that previous very low butter-fat yields at shows were not representative of the breed. Eleven British Friesians, six of them first calf heifers, averaged Sljlb of milk, and with a butter-fat percentage of 2.52, at the recent milking trials. Some big prices for Jerseys have been put up in the United States. A bull brought £4600, a eew brought £3OOO.

which is said to be a record, and another cow brought £2400. These are cases where populations justify !bi« prices. It would not pay our biggest dairyherd breeders to give or refuse a very largo figure for the best of their stud. With a population of 120,000 there must be hundreds of stud-breeders in the United States after the best for every one that there is in Australia. This country would not know itself if we had population here to consume our produce and create a demand for highclass goods.

A twelvc-months-old Shorthorn bull in U.S.A. brought £2BOO at auction. Aberdeen-Angus cows brought up to £3OOO, and a yearling hull .-02800. These prices though high, sink into insignificance, however, when compared with Fricsian sales, which are booming higher than ever. At a special auction of this breed a bull calf two months old brought £10,000! He was a topnotch animal in breeding. His sire brought £21,000 two years ago, and his dam has the record of 180,0001b of milk in seven, vears.

Tractors are going to play an important role in the harvesting crop Ihrougouf England this autumn, says Mark Express, and farmers who have not already got suitable machines will find themselves at a disadvantage. Meat freezing and canning works are being established in Khodeaia on a cooperative basis. This is another country that will probably be pushing the meat export trade in the near future. It would certainly seem that there is going to be an "abundant supply of meat for all nations shortly. In all probability no European country will he able to supply its own; but* with the new countries coming on the outlook is that meat will be plentiful and cheap in a very short time. Africa exported 35,000 quarters of beef for the first five months of the year, Draught horses that could not be given away a few months ago are now in demand. Buyers are out in quest of good useful farm sorts. During the last year or so there have been heavy losses of horses, the cost of feed being *o great that some owners could not afford to keep them, and they were eithei shot or died from starvation. If the scarcity of this class of horse continues it will turn more attention to the tractor for harvesting purposes, says the Sydney Mail.

The French Government is arranging to import several thousand head of cattle from other countries, including Canada and the United States. Dairy cattle are in most demand. It is said that there are surplu's supplies in Switzerland, which seems rather strange news, seeing that that little country was so near the fighting line and must have had a'bundant opportunities to sell all its surplus stuff at very high prices. There is a big decrease of sheep also in France. Even before the war the numbers were diminishing and the demand for foodstuffs during the war further accentuated the decline.

English agricultural journals to hand are extolling the virtues of the Devon breed of cattle. Not only are they good beef-producing animals, 'but they have been bred up in one instance to produce 10,0001b of milk in the year, which is as good as the best. They are hardy, and graziers fatten them'on outside summer pastures while all other breeds are staffed. Visitors to the Sydney show generally see a few Devons exhibited by one or two wealthy breeders who evidently can afford the hobby, for they are certainly not a popular breed in Australia. There arc no studs of Devons in Victoria., -and many cattlemen there have never seen one. One of the features of the English Royal Show was the apparent popularity of white cattle among the Durhams. There were twenty-seven entered, several of them taking prizes. We hardly see a white Durham in the Sydney show, and is it many years since the championship was carried off hy one of that colour. The whites are not popular in this country, because the skin of the beasts is so liable to be attacked hy what bushmen call "aphis," a disease which the department does not yet thoroughly understand. It conies as the accompaniment of a flush of green feed.

Friesian breeders in 'England are making strenuous efforts to produce as great yielders as some of those that have made world records in America. According to late exchanges, Mr. John Bromet is sending his 2208-gallon sow, that yielded 12431b of butter, to be mated with the champion bull at the recent, Royal Show. The cow, Stanfield Dorrit, is the champion butter cow of the British Empire, and the Royal Show champion bull was Mr. James' E. Hughes's Eulkeley Klaske's Ceres, whose dam gave 1500 gallons at 4 per cent, of butter-fat, and whose sire's dam averaged for five consecutive years 1210 gallons of milk at 4.00 butter-fat. Such mating should surely produce milk and butter champions, especially as .the progeny of old Stanlield .Dorrit inhVrit her high butter-fat yield. It is reported that the demand for Downs wool has arisen in connection with the hosiery industry, and a taste for finer material, Of course, the Downs sheep do not cut such a. 'heavy fleece as the majority of other English breeds, so the great difference in price —something like 4s (id, as against Is (id per lb—is something discounted by that fact. Nevertheless, that such * wool should be in demand at all is a «reat surprise to Australians, who have always put Downs wool down near the bottom of the list.

The wonderful fecundity of the Dorset Horn 'sheep was exhibited at a show i„ Scotland. The exhibit was a Dorset Horn ewe and eight of her offspring, all bom since, February, I9ly. Two ewe lambs were born then, and they each produced a lamb of their own within a year; the old ewe produced another pair of twins in September, 1010, and still another pair in February, 1020.

The Sydney Mail says: Readers who have followed the controversy in the Mail regarding the best bred'breed of dairy cows for Australia will he interested in the results of a year's test of the 1000 cows on the Bodalhi Estate, the. fourteen herds on the estate have been built up by systematic testing and culling for a number of years They are kept under natural conditions, and there is no hand-feeding, except occasionally with green fodder. The purebred Friesians easily head the list, So cows, with an average lactation period of 304 days, producing about 74081b of milk per cow, testing 3.u9 per cent, and yielding 208.11b ol Nutter-fat. Grade Friesians come second, 87 cows, over a lactation period of 207 days, averaging 71431b milk, testing 8.07 per cent., and yielding 202.041b butter-fat. Next come the Ayrshires (82 in the herd), with an average of 08801b milk, testing 3.83 per cent, and giving 203.18 lb of butter-fat per cow over a lactation period of 2SO days. There are apparently no purebred Jerseys on the estate." The grade Jerseys come ninth on the list "with 51091b of milk and 20g,«1b of butterfat per eew,