Agricultural Items.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6482, 27 February 1889, Page 1

Agricultural Items.

I . » I It has-been arranged to hold the first Wellington Agricultural Show some time , in November. Plan your work, and then work up to I your pleui. System in farming, like_tne solar system, mores without friction. Plan your rotation. o£ crops ahead. The Mark Lane Express, the first agricultural newspaper of the world, has found it necessary to make a permanent increase in its size of four pages; beginning on Jan. 1,1889.During the first eleven months of last year the value on the pedigree horses and cattle which were exported was ;£984,134i as compared with .£689,206 in 1887, and J6521.186 in 1886. The proposed increase in freight on flax is causing a good deal of indignation, and a public meeting will be held to consider the question of chartering vessels at the present rate of freight. At the annual Smitbfield Show held in December last, three Hampshire Down 1 .wethers were shown weighing 7scwt ; three well f urhiahed ewes, 7cwt 2ctrs 241b ; and three ten-months old lambs, sowt 3qrsl9lb. j From the Wairarapa Valley we learn that the harvest prospects from one end of the Valley to the other are of the most ■ ■ cheering character. Cutting is generally ' well over, but farmers are threshing somewhat early, in view of the Australian market. Recent rains have done much good to the pastures and root crops. j Says the Hawera Star :— The export of butter from New Plymouth during the Deeembar quarter of last year was valued at .£11,910, the total for the colony being ,£41,238. Of the Wellington export of thia article, .£9940, no doubt a greater part came from Southern Tarnnaki, so that the export from this provincial district formed a large I proportion of the total. | No matter by what process it ia accomplished, the man who takes more from the : land than he adds will sooner or later over- ; draw his account, no matter how heavy the original deposits may have been. The soil is a storehouse of food, which will honour our drafts at will, but only in proportion to the deposits which are made. Therefore, feed the soil. Success in farming, as in all pursuits, depends on persistent attention to the details, on close application to business, ! and on economy. The farmer should make a yearly inventory of stock and tools and I everything -used in the business, and | should have some practical system of keep- | ing. accounts, so that he can tell from year to j year what progress he is making. I From the Australasian wo cut the follow- J ! ing complimentary remarks about Messrs i Maltockand Lance's exhibit of wool, at the i Melbourne exhibition : — Messrs Mallock ■ and Lance, of Horsley Downs, Canterbury, i New Zealand, show a beautiful wool which, i though not long in staple, is very soft, fine, I and well-bred. It is also in very light condition, is very showy, and is quite free from fault of any kind. It is in the best condition of any N ew Zealand wool } shown here. A recent issue of Harper's Weekly states that within the last five years over j .£5,000,000 has been invested in irrigation 1 works ia California, and as a consquence . the value of land with water has increased | from ten to fifty fold. The taxable valuation has increased at the rate of .£20,000,000 j & year during the last four years. Under ! the influence of irrigation, Counties which before were almost entirely unproductive -are now blooming with verdure and yielding abundant crops. A Manawatu exchange says : — The oat crop around Awahuri and Feilding is this year very much affected with rust. Mr Sanson, who saw indications of rust in his early oats, cut them a week or so before they were really ripe, and by taking some pains in getting them well dried before carting, be was enabled to save them in such a condition as to be enabled to cut the straw into first-class chaff. His late oats are, however, like those throughout that dißtriot, so full of rust ap to nearly suffocate the drivers of the reaping machines. "Is Improved Agriculture a Failure ?" is the title of an article in the Times, ' which discusses the lessons the British j farmer has learned from Competition and \ bad seasons, and the vwie those lessons , have, been to him. In she matter of live stock, at any rate, it is contended that great improvement has been made in the i last ten or twenty years. The late Mr J. C. Morton shortly before his death increased his estimate of the milk yield per : cow per annum by no less than 40gaJs as ' compared with his estimate in 1878. 'Taking this increase on the yield of 3,500,000 cows and heifers in milk or : in calf, it would mean an increase from ' the same number of animals of j 140,000,000ga1a more than the yield of | 1878, and this, reckoned at 6d per gallon, ' would represent a gain to the United j Kingdom of £3,600,000. But even if only 1 half of this increase may be counted on it ;is a notable ' gain. And in the early maturity of fattening stock great advances ; have been made, the same weight being < now got in a beast at two or three years of ■ age as was formerly procurable at four or • five. The article concludes by stating that agricultural improvements are now getting much greater returns from our , acreß than was the case in the old " unimproved" days, and attributes much of the ' progress to the efforts of the numerous agricultural societies. i A recent issue of the American Dairy World contained a suggestive article on the improvement of the large varieties of : dairy cows. In England it is well known 1 that, as a general rule, the smaller breeds are more valuable to the dairyman than the large; and this, our contemporary thinks, must be the result of long-con- . tinued selection and improvement. But it I points out that there is no reason why, by 'means of skilful breeding, the larger ', varieties should not be made proportionally as good. To put the matter in definite figures, itmeansthat,Bupposeacow (of any breed) weighs 8001b, and yields per annum 600gal8 of milk for a certain outlay for food, &c, then a cow weighing 16001b should give 1200gals of milk per annum of the- same quality as the others, and, of coarse, at double the outlay. As a matter of fact, breeds, or whole herds, do not yield anything like at this rate, with the larger varieties, though many individual cows attain to and exceed this limit ; and .tiie question is, can they not be made to do bo ? The answer, of course, is that they ought to be, and one of the points to be aimed at in breeding is to develop this milking power to a greater extent. There is nothing inherent in any breed to prevent ; development in this direction, though local ) .circumstances have hadmuch to do with developing peculiarities. It seems at first sight a feasible thing that all animals should yield produce in proportion to size, , weight, food consumed, &c, unless they are radically faulty.