AGRICULTURAL NOTES.

Taranaki Daily News, 8 March 1924, Page 15

AGRICULTURAL NOTES.

Nearly 800 acres of sugar beet have been grown in the southern part of Lincolnshire this year.

At the annual Christmas sale at Aberdeen of the King’s cattle from Balmoral, the top price was £74, paid for a beautifully finished black-polled bullock weighing llcwt. Purchases were made at very good prices for big firms in London, Leeds, Glasgow, and other centres.

A novel method of ascertaining the guilt of dogs was disclosed in a prosecution for sheep-worrying at Battle. The police administered an emetic to two suspected dogs, one of which returned a ball of sheep wool. The magistrates made an order for the destruction of the dog.

In winter, skim milk should be fed warm as it is more palatable and makes larger and more economical gains. Cold skim milk chills calves in winter and may oaua» indigestion. Skim milk fed

warm part of the time and cold part of the time is better than cold skim m» ,u all the time.

The Canadian field crops, for 1923 are valued approximately at 891,000,000 dollars (normally £'222,500,000), representing a decrease of 70,000,000 dollars from 1922, due to lower prices. The Canadian wheat crop is estimated at 474,000,000 bushels, an increase of 75,000,000 bushels above the figures for 1922.

The Victorian Society for the Protection of Animals for the year ending June 30, 1923, investigated 3092 cases of reported cruelty to animals, while 256 prosecutions were conducted from which £684 was received from fines, all of which was divided between the State Treasury and the municipalities.

A trial shipment of 130,0001 b of Alberta creamery butter is being made to Liverpool, England, by the Panama Canal. It is the first time that this route has been used for butter. If the route proves satisfactory it is probable that the Panama Canal will get a good share of the butter export trade between Alberta and Great Britain.

The future of the very fine merino wool is largely bound up with France’s prosperity, as she has made the treats ment of such quite a specialty for many years, and aiiy country trying to take her place would find it difficult to develop what —for the want of a better term —may best bo described as the “fine wool sense.”

According to a preliminary estimate by the London Grain, Seed and Oil Reporter, the wheat yields of most European c.ountries last season was in excess of 1922. The aggregate is given as 1,223,200,000 bushels, compared with 1,027,272,000 bushels in the previous year. The principal gains occurred in France, Italy, Germany, Spain and Roumania.

A well-known drover who recently delivered a mob of cattle lifted on Cork Station, North Queensland, and travelled to the district, said, he had travelled the back tracks of Queensland for thirty years with stock, but never had he seen the stock route® so scarce of food. There 4 was no grass; only dust and dirt. It is advisable to examine cheese occasionally during the ripening period, and dispose of any faulty ones at once. If a cheese is tainted during the early part of the ripening period, the taint usually increases as the cheese is kept. A low price is then obtained for the faulty cheese, after having kept it a considerable time.

Butter of average quality contains abbut 84 per cent, of pure butter-fat, the remaining portion consisting of water, salt, and constituents of milk other than fat. The difference between the weight of butter-fat and the amount of butler made from it is termed the "overrun.” One hundred pounds of butter-fat should yield 1121 b to 1161 b 'of finished butter.

After boring a cheese, if a thin layer of fat is left on the trier it denotes that the cheese is of good quality so far as the fat content is concerned. A .poor quality cheese leaves the trier free from fat, and such a cheese becomes hard with keeping instead of turning mellow. It is essential that the cheese-trier is wiped after use, otherwise a taint in one cheese may be transferred to others. Spinal meningitis has been causing extensive losses in horses in the United States. Twenty thousand died in two months from the disease, which is an inflammatory disorder of the covering membranes of the brain and spinal cord, causing death in from 24 hours to three days. The epidemic has extended to Wyoming and Minnesota, and traces of it to Missouri and Colorado. So far the cause remains undiscovered.