AGRICULTURAL JOTTINGS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5663, 7 September 1896, Page 4

AGRICULTURAL JOTTINGS.

: L" Canterbury Times."] At last an upward movement in the principal wheat markets of Europe and America is reported. Unfavourable weather for the harvest in Russia and America is stated to be the cause of the general advance in prices, and the latest lnail'adviees hinted that from this and other causes the crops in some of the chief producing countries were not likely to be so heavy as had been anticipated. Stocks also were very low, so that the market was undoubtedly- in a sensitive condition. Bradstreet s estimated the visible supply, comprising the quantities in sight in America (on both the east and west coasts), the quantity afloat for Europe, and the stocks in United Kingdom ports, France, Belgium, Berlin, Danzig and Stettin, and Odessa, on July 1 at 105,000,000 bushels, the figures at the same date in previous years being as follows.—lß9s, 130,877,000 bushels ; 1894, 146,519,000 bushels; 1893, 152,308,000 bushels; 1892, 99,203,000 bushels; 1891, 83,395,000 bushels; 1890, 69,185,000 bushels. The present total, it will be seen, is the smallest since 1892. Bcerbohm's List estimated that the stock available for the United Kingdom, comprising stocks of English wheat in farmers' hands, stocks of foreign' wheat held at ports, and the quantity afloat from foreign countries to the United Kingdom amounted to only 4,500,000 quarters on July 10/ against 7,187,000 quarters at the corresponding date last year, and 6,500,000 quarters at the corresponding date in 1894. The statistical position is undoubtedly strong, but so' many unfulfilled prophecies have been based on the statistics of the wheat trade that very little confidence can now be placed in them. The fact remains that just at the period when the new harvest is becoming available prices have advanced, and no doubt colonial wheat-growers will see in this some encouragement. There is a big gap, however, between present colonial prices and the parity of those current in London. The satisfactory result of the last year's business of the principal dairy factories in Canterbury is a matter on which those interested in them are to be congratulated. In some cases, perhaps, the most was not made of the favourable course of the butter market, and it is certain that very few, if any, of the suppliers made the most of the productive powers df his land and cows. We have heard of an instance in which the owner of a large well-cared-for herd had perforce to dry them off early in the season, for the simple but unsatisfactory reason that all his fellow-suppliers' cows had run dry, in their case from want of care. This, occurring at the most profitable period of the season, when if one could keep his cows going the others could, certainly showed bad dairy farming. The short supply of milk is the reason given by most of the factory companies for failure to make a much greater profit than was made during the year, and the reason for the short supply is stated to be that the cows were ■in bad condition at the beginning of the season. To make dairy farming as profitable as it should be the season must be considerably lengthened. To this end the cows and their treatment must both be improved. For want of proper treatment the best of dairy herds deteriorate, and we believe it is neglect of the stock rather than want of good blood in them which has brought our dairy herds to so low a state of productiveness. . When we hear of cows coming into milk in September and October and being dry in February, we can expect to hear nothing else than the cry that " dairying is unprofitable." It is the farmers' want of system, and not the dairy factory system, that is at fault, and it should be the aim of shareholders' in cooperative factories, especially, to make better use of their cows and increase their profits. Seasons so profitable as the last cannot be calculated upon in future, with increased supplies from nearly every dairying country, and the profit will have to be made in increased economy of production and manufacture at this end. The small bird pest is causing farmers more than usual anxiety this spring, the mild winter having rendered poisoning less effective than is generally the case, and also brought a prospect of a large increase during the spring. Poisoning, as the least troublesome, will always be the method most generally practised, and with very little more trouble it could be made very much more destructive than when the poisoned grain is merely scattered on the roads and land. By watching where the sparrows gather — and the sparrow is extremely gregarious in its habits — and baiting the place with untreated grain, the birds will congregate from near and far, and after a 'few mornings the poisoned grain is laid with fatal effect, upwards of a thousand having been knpwn to be destroyed thus within a small area. Trapping is preferred by some farmers and by many gardeners. Mr Tegetmeier, the English ornithologist, describes a trap which he has found most successful. It is a cylindrical basket, 21 inches in diameter, and about 10 inches high, close below, with the sides formed of thin upright rods about half an inch apart. The top of the basket is made on the same principle as a lobster pot, or a wire rat - trap. The birds alight on the top, and, seeing the- corn or crumbs which are placed in the interior, leap down the funnel, and seem, to be utterly incapable of finding their way out again, the . rods of the ' funnel being ingeniously bent outwards so as to prevent the birds' ready access.below the opening; in fact they only seem to try and find their way out through the sides, which are too close to allow of their egress. These traps are exceedingly efficacious ; with! three of them over fifty sparrows have been caught |in one day. Traps are most effective with young birds ; a few old sparrows may be ['caught when a trap is first set, but after- | wards the snare is avoided by the [ adults. ■ V Mr Tegetmeier is perfectly convinced of the injurious character of this species. The sparrow is purely a domesticated animal — a parasite on man. Its nest is never found a quarter of a mile away from a human habitation. With the exception of the time it is feeding its young, which it does for about a fortnight, mainly on insect food, if it can obtain it, it is entirely a grain and fruit eating bird. This was established by the examination of one hundred sparrows a month for a whole year, the crops being opened and no insects found therein. Others caught from time to time have been examined, with the same result ; grain of various kinds forms their chief food. A bulletin of the United States Department of Agriculture treats most exhaustively of the subject. It records the history of the sparrow in every State of the Union in which it had been introduced up to the time of publication in ISB9. It gives an account of its importation from Europe, the injuries it does to the fruit and flowers in gardens and to vegetables-^destroy-ing growing peas, seeds and seedlings. The injury to grain is reported with regard to every crop, as is the effect of the sparrows in exterminating other more useful birds. The monograph then sums up the evidence on the relation of sparrows to insects, and it demonstrates the.fact that in America (where they were foolishly introduced and acclimatised from an idea that they would destroy the insects which eat the leaves of the trees in the cities), that their presence has absolutely increased the number of these insects, in consequence of. the sparrows driving away the other birds which would feed upon them. The one commendation of the sparrow in the' whole of this volume of 400 pages is the paragraph on the bird as an article of food. We are informed in ■ it that at restaurants it is commonly sold under the name of the ricebird, even at the' time of the year when there are no rice-birds in the country ; and it is said that when feeding in the grain fields its flesh is: especially good, and if caught alive in the city the quality of the flesh can be much improved by feeding a few days with oatmeal, maize meal or wheat. The merits of the sparrow as a delicacy are not likely, however, to be appreciated in New Zealand to such an extent a3 to compensate for its faults as a destroyer of crops in field and garden.