AGRICULTURAL.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 13880, 17 April 1909, Page 2 (Supplement)

AGRICULTURAL.

THE TURNIP MOTH. At the annual meeting of the A. and P. Association the retiring president, Mr M. Murphv, referred to the loss or the Canterbury sheep farmers through the ravages of the diamond-back moth, and suggested, owing to its peculiar habit of flight and difficulty of destroying it, that a bonus up to £ooo bo offered for a machine that would capture them. A correspondent of tlie " Press " savs that Peter Henderson s (New York) "" Gardening for Profit, m dealing with insects which attack the cabbage, says: "Another most troublesome insect is the cabbage caterpiHai, which often attacks the crop when just beginning to head. When fields of cabbales are isolated, or where neighbours can be found to act in unison, the best plan is to catch the butterflies withail insect-catching net as soon as they. show themselves. This is the effective and quickest way to get rid ot them." Experience with all sorts of insecticides has proved it to be a costly undertaking, and the. hunted success attained by their use m the vegetable garden needs one to look for some ot cr. Solution. the machine sugcested bv Mr M. Murphy, or the m-fSfatching-net oFPeter Henderson, might solve the - - THE FROZEN MEAT TRADE.— Kfa sw of the pendulum—that other countries, in the yearl9oß i*e proportion had gone %™ 5 %T°Jg. cent/, as compared * lt \ n '= e f *ll from other -countries, I " i ha ;j; t^ y tll i ß hoped -for was improved trade m tins country, but the decrease m the Board o£ Trade returns for 1003 With 1907 must necessarily n«,*n less trails!* but he saw fab reason why, cerSv so far as mutton was concerned, Sralasia should not be able to hold its own. The important thing was that Ihe New Australian sheepfarmers should recognise that if their trade were to continue, prices must go down in Australasia in order to meet the competition. It was clear that their company could not go on _giymg the prices in New Zealand that they : cave last rear and show a decrease ot profit of £27,000 on the sale of what . they purchased. He did not think, however, that shareholders need feel alarmed about the reduction, for ;they had to take one year with another.

SILAGE. A good deal is written nowadays about silage. One of the few men who regularlv make it is" Mr James Peat,"of Waitotara. Besides being a sheep farmer, he has a herd of 100. dairv cattle, which. give a wonderful: average. In the paddocks now are i the remains of the previous season s stack. It is perfectly sweet and good; in-fact some sheep were actually-scrap-ing the smooth-cut sides to get some of the. feed. Thev could not get hold-to nibble it ,so just scraped/it with their "feet. This season's make has just been completed. The material is ycen oats. : and as fast as it is cut it is carted to the stack, in which form Mr Peat finds ho has great success, never laving any trouble. About a foot or earth is placed on top of the" stack to 'provide'the necessary pressure.-- All classes of stock—horses, cattle, and sheep—are very fond of the product, and, of course, do well on it. Showery ■weather :is no bar to ensilage, as it is in havmaking; everything goes into the silo—thistles, docks, and iinyTffirig~eTsjrr They all come out with a splendid aronja, and" are readily taten up. The ■wonder is that so few men go in tor ensilage when they have practical demonstrations close to them, of the ease "with which it can be made. AMERICAN FARM" LABOUR. An American writer " shows liow much is required of a farm -labourer in the United States in return for such ■wages as about £4 per month, with board and lodging:—" He : must be down by 4 a.m., and work until 6 a.m., U-lien he lias 20 minutes for breakfast; then work until noon; 35 to 40 minutes for dinner; then work until 6 or v o'clock. What does he get in return? The wages of £4 a month and his board, which equals 12s per week, a bare room, with an old bed, one chair, perhaps a bureau, and no heat. He washes down in the kitchen, his breakfast consists of boiled or fried potatoes, New Zealand wheat growers are quite in the dark as to whether their wheat is improving or not, and an annual test such as is made in. New South Wales •would be instructive. VALUES AND WAGES IN CANADA. A COMPARISON. Mr G. H. Knibbs, the Commonwealth Statistician,: has received from the Census Office, of Canada a report on the position and values and wages in that country for comparison with those obtained in Australia. The average value ot farm la nil loi all the provinces is £7 9s per acre, In five of the provinces it is under £0 os, being £5 14s in Manitoba, £o 4s in Nora Scotia, £4 9s in New Brunswick, £4 5s in Saskatchewan, and £o lbs in Alberta. In Prince Edward Island the average is £7 0s 5d per acre, m Quebec £8 15s. in Ontario" £9 17s, and m British Columbia £ls 17s. Values are high in the last named province, owing to the comparatively large extent ot. farm land in orchard and small fruits. Thfo average value of horses at the end of the year is £9 12s for those under one year, £2O 17s for those of one to under three years, and £29 16s for those of three years and over. Horses of the last class are below an average of £25 in Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, and Alberta; in New Brunswick, Quebec, and Ontario they are about £29 3s, and in Manitoba and Saskatchewan they are £35 8s to £36 13s. Milch cows have an average value in the Dominion of £7 2s, ranging from £6 Is in Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick to £7 10s in Ontario and £7 lis in Saskatchewan: but in British Columbia the average is £lO. Other horned cattle have an average value over the Dominion of £1 17s 6d for those Under one year, £4 7s (id for those of one to under three years,..and £6 13s for those of three years and over. -These averages are generally close for all the provinces. but the highest values are given for Ontario and' the western provinces. The .'average" value of swine is given as £1 4s od per 100 lbs live-■ weight, being; lowest in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta, and highest in. Quebec, Ontario, and British Columbia. Sheep <'< re given . an average value of £1 Is 9d. ner head for the Dominion. and are, below "the average in the maritime prr v incps. Quebec pnd Saskatchewan; 'The total value of farrti animals

computed on the foregoing averages and the number of.-nnimals on farms in June was £110,416,66(1. The June price of wool in the Dominion' 'Was Del per lb. The average wages for farm and domestic help for the Dominion per month was £5 2s 6d for males and £2 16s 3d for females, and per year £43 10s lOd for males and £27 Is 8d for females. The highest averages arc reported, for the western provinces, where thy reach about £62 10s per year for males and £33 Cs 8d for females. In Ontario and Quebec the average for males is about £SO; and for females £2o per year.

tough steak, bread, poor butter, arid worse coffee. The dinner is the srine, except that the kind of meat may vary; another vegetable isrdded, a pic. A rest of 15 minutes is the •rule. Supper is the same ; s breakfast, with the possible :dditioivof cake and stewed fruit." The employment in many cases is only for the busy periods of the year," and the majority of farm labourers have to get work, if they can, apart from the. farm,, during the winter.

BRITISH AGRICULTURAL RETURNS. A summary of tlie changes which have taken place within the last twelve months in the live and dead stock of Great Britain may be interesting. Taking the nearest round figures, we find that wheat has increased by 1300 "acres, but every other corn has gone down, and there is a total decrease of 17,000 acres of corn. There is an .increase of 137,000 acres of permanent pasture. - With potatoes, there lias been an increase of 13,000 acres, but every other root crop has declined in area, with a corresponding increase in bare fallow of 53,000 acres. Xucerne lias increased 1300 acres, and small fruits 2700. • Of horses there is an in"crease- of over. 3000 in those used on ! the farm, but a decrease of over 14,000 in voting horses : unbroken. Of cows there is a slight decrease in those actually in milk, but an increase of those in calf to the extent of about 5000. The greatest difference is in the case of sheep, in which there is an increase in air kinds of a total of over 900,000. The summary of the whole matter is that there is.a great decline in the arable areas in the country, equal to an increase in the grass land, accompanied by an increase in the number of sheep. There is a great reduction in root acreage with an increase in bare fallow, and the total number of farm horses is, reduced by over 10,000. All these changes only amount to a few percentages on the totals, of course. Thus the rise in sheep is only equivalent to 3.5 per cent, of the whole, tlie permanent pasture increase is less than one per cent., the. rise in potatoes only 2.4 per eejit., and so on. Summarising still further, it may be-pointed out that-most ~of~these changes mean a reduction in the number of meil (and women) employed on the land. Grass land does not require so much labour as arable, bare fallow is done without the hand work required by root crops. The labour question has been a.trouble since the- beginning of time, but every farmer is •inclined more" and more, as the' time goes on, to adopt a system of farming wjiich will reduce the number of workmen as far as' possible, t .

BEWARE OF OVERSTOCKING. "To keep the sheep industry as satisfactory as it should be the one fact that every,' farmer should keep. before his mind's eye is 'Beware of overstocking/ " said Mr Lowrie (the for nier director of Lincoln College), to a 'iueetiug oT Westralian farmers. "That, of course, is an everyday platitude; but, although the dangers of and the troubles from it arc very well understood, there are many that do not act accordingly. I" think every farmer should have it pasted up in red ink over his dressing table so that ho will see it every mcrning, ' Beware of overstocking.' Its evils come out in so niany ways. Your ewes suffer, your wool is split, your percentage of lambs is smaller, and your lambs are never of good quality." Bather see some of „y_cnr_£eed. going to waste than run the risk of seeing your sheep scraping the surface for something to eat. Even to the very wiset and most cautious there comes a time when things will ' gang agley.' AY'hen that time comes 1 would urge that if there is i stack of hay on the farm, that stack shall be reduced before the ewes are allowed to suffer. Bather than pinch his flock when they are about to drop their lambs, it will pay a man to chaff his hay and feed it to them, even when hay is at so high a price as you are fortunate enough to receive for it- here. One'-pound of chaff per day will keep them in fair condition, and 21b per day will be full going for them. You will not have to do it very long, and then only in exceptional seasons, when heavy summer rajns come, and the dry feed gets trampled down and blown away. If you have no facilities to chaff, feed the hay long. It will be more wasteful thau chaffing; but better than letting the flocks starve and have a break in the wool." THE MILLING QUALITIES OF WHEAT. It was recently pointed out by a writer in an Australian paper that judging grain on the appearance of a sample was often misleading and of no practical value. The best looking sample of wheat may be the poorest in milling qualities, and a sample that is perhaps pinched, and therefore passed over by the judge, may be the most valuable from the miller's and bread consumer's standpoint. Nothing appears to have been done in this Dominion in regard to testing wheat for its milling qualities. Enquiring recently as to the value of the French wheats imported of late years, a miller informed me that they were not equal to the varieties that have been the mainstay of our. wheat growers for so long. In New South "Wales a good move has been made by having the f.a.q. standard wheat tested" for its milling qualities. Mr J. 1). Guthrie, chemist to the New South : Wales Department of Agriculture, reports as follows upon the standard wheat for the harvest of 1908-o:—Ap-pearance of grain: Dull white, soft, large, fairly plump." Weight per bushel: 6'Ulb. Ease of milling: Kasy to mill. Percentage of mill products: Flour, 09.7; pollard. 14.0; bran, 16.3. Nature of flour: Colour of flour, excellent; strength of flour (in quarts of water) per 200lh sack, 4R; percentage of dry gin ten 12.2. These tests were not made before 1906, but from the examination of typical wheats from different districts made in the laboratory before that (late the evidence is still more conclusive that the class of grain grown locally is undergoing a gradual hut considerable improvement, more particularly in the matter of flour strength, a quality that is becoming more and more recognised as of the value of grain in the world's markets. They were" still a good way behind some of the Canadian and American wheats in this respect, hut the results of the testing of the locally-grown strong flour wheats show conclusively that they could cultivate these wheats successfully, and continued improVement in this respect, with a corresponding increase in the value of their wheat and flour, may be confidently expected.