THE FARMERS COLUMN.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XVI, Issue 952, 4 July 1883, Page 6

THE FARMERS COLUMN.

Cotton-seed meal is the most concentrated and valuable of all food for cows. It is worth for feeding about twice as much as corn-meal, but it should be mixed with three times its bulk of bran or with cut hay or straw to be safely used.

Dr Voelcker recently stated before a meeting of the British Farmers' Association that he found that food given to a cow while in milk would be converted into milk within six hours from the time it was eaten, and that a rapid improvement in the quality of the milk follows a change from richer to poorer food. He also spoke very decidedly in favour of soiling as against pasturing, the latter being a most wasteful method of feeding. An effective remedy for lice on any animal is some oily or greasy preparation. Oil or grease is fatal to any insect which it may touch, as it closes its [breathing organs which are on each side of the body. But it is better to use some substance having a disagreeable scent, such as sulphur, kerosene, creosote, or carbolic acid, mixed with the oil in such proportion as not to injure the skin. Pigs cannot be fed wholly on grain and keep healthy. One of the first indications of failing health is a depraved appetite. To avoid this it would be well to give some potatoes boiled with the grain and fed cold. Some cut bay may be also boiled with the feed, When food is passed out with the excrements, it shows that the digestion is out of order and a change of food and, perhaps some medicine is required. Give a half-pint of linseed oil and use some potatoes or turnips. The retention of the afterbirth in sheep indicates weakness from some cause, and unless great care be taken the ewes always perish in consequence. The treatment in such a case would be to give a teaspoonful of carbonate of potassa dissolved in half a pint of infusion of chamomile or savin leaves. Three hours after this give one ounce Glauber's salts. If the membranes are not removed, give one drachm of hyposulphate of soda daily for a month, and an occasional dose of one ounce of the salts.

Don't be afraid to put warm drink in a poultry house on cold mornings. If they have a little warm water in the morning, with a little cayenne pepper put in to keep it so, it will be very grateful to the birds, and is a beneficial corrective as well, while such "peppered drinks " will not congeal so quickly as water will without it in the coldest weather. But the clean, fresh water in ample supply within the chicken house is a desideratum, and cannot be over-estimated in the severe wintry days. Don't forget this; it pays. When a calf or a cow is found breathing heavily without any other irregular symptom or any fever or redness of the eyes or parched muzzle, the trouble may be considered to arise from indigestion and a disordered stomach. Probably the chewing of the cud will be found suspended. In such cases it is best to give at once a dose of raw linseed oil — two ounces for a calf and 10 or 16 ounces for a cow. Usually abstinence from food will bring a cure in a few days. When there is any fever, the medicine should be epsom salts in the same quantity, dissolved in warm water.

A rennet that has been taken from a calf which has never been suckled or fed, is rank poison, and should never be

saved. The calf should at least be three days old before killing. Rennets are usually in their best condition when the age of the calf is from five to ten days old before killing ; but they do not gain much in strength so long as the calves live entirely on milk. As soon as calves begin to live on solid food, the strength of their stomachs, ac rennets, begin to abate. Calves five days old are considered of proper age, and their stomachs are counted the very best, and are generally preferred by cheese makers to those younger or older. To obtain the best rennets, the calf should be allowed to suck or be fed a moderate meal 12 hours before killing. It is the best way to give the last meal at night and kill in the morning. There is one crop that can hardly be sown too thickly — that is, grass— which cannot be injured by overcrowding. Of course it is possible to throw down too much seed, but every seed that germinates and takes hold of the ground will probably make a plant, and help to make a thick tender covering to the soil. The thicker the grass is, the finer it is, and the finer it is, so much the more tender, With the exception of lucerne it is best to sow a mixture of grasses, because some sorts obtain their subsistence near the surface, whilst others get it from the depths. Some get their nourishment largely from the air, and others largely from the earth. Some are green at a time when others are getting dry ; and when a lot of grasses are growing in one pasture, the stock get a palatable variety which makes their food more agreeable to them, and when they are satisfied with their fodder they are likely to be contented and grow fat. If in sowing seeds in the open ground, we would control every condition, we might raise our crops with a small share of the seed we actually use. In order to bring the soil in close contact with the seed, and to prevent injury to the germinatimg plants by the contact of dry atmosphere, we compact the soil by the use of a roller, by patting it with a spade, or sometimes by treading upon it. The young plants, in reaching the surface, have not only to contend with the weight of the soil over them, bnt they have to break through this artificially formed cruat. The force exercised by a single plantlet is slight, but multiplied many times, it is sufficient to overcome the obstacle — the earth above it, and by united effort so to speak, a multitude of seeds do what a few would perish in attempting. In carrot seed, for example, we use perhaps a dozen seeds to gain force sufficient to break the ground and allow a single seed to grow and come to maturity. Iv answer to " Orchadist," regarding rabbits injuring fruit trees by eating off the bark, " Agricola," in the Auckland " Weekly News," states that various remedies have been tried with more or less success, such as paint, tar, kerosene, etc. One of the simplest remedies, however, is given by a correspondent of the " Gardener's Monthly," who says : — A few yeara ago I was greatly annoyed with rabbits barking my young apple trees. To prevent their depredations I made ropes of hay. These I wound round the trunks of the trees, from the roots to the first limbs, in the fall. I left on the following summer, and when I removed them in the fall I found the bark fresh and healthy and free from blotches. I repeated the operation for some years and in consequence have healthy, vigorous trees, free from fungus and all disease, and yielding an abundance of fruit. The process is not only good for protecting the trees from rabbits, but also to protect the bark from the cold winds of winter and the hot sun of summer.