Agricultural Items.

Wairarapa Age, 18 March 1929, Page 3

Agricultural Items.

An experiment at the Ohio Station (United * Status), shows that rats fed on bread made with water required from 11 to 13 weeks to double their weight, whereas others rats receiving bread made with milk, doubled their weight in 5 weeks or less.

Duiing the first six months of the pi’esent year the United States exported 23,524.402' bushels of wheat, 14,527,619 bushels maize, 6,675,688 bushels barley, and 6,194,684 bushels Tye. The corresoonding figures for January-June 1927, were:-—Wheat,- 45/32,609; maize. 9,582,123; barley, 8,068,965; and rye, 16,091,335.

'Comparison of the milk production of a disease-free group of cows with that of a group infected with contagious abortion shows £ll worth of milk per cow per year more for the nonaborting cows, according to report from the Illinois Experiment Station. The diseased cows averaged to» a,bout--266 days from conception. Milk was valued at 10s per hundred.

In the cereal year eziiea August 31, 1928, Great Britain imported the equivalent to 5,934,000 tons of wheat in the form of grain’ and flour, compared with 6,117,000 tons in 1926-27. Maize importations last year totalled 1,794,000 tons, and 1,905,000 in the previous twelve months, oats 386,000 tons (280,(100 in 1926-27), and barley 733,0 CC tons (-848,000 tons in 1926-27).

The report of the directors of the Canadian, wheat pool for 1927-28 states that the quantity of wheat handled by the organ!saiion for the term aggregated 215,489,000 bushels. The gross sales price for wheat, on rhe basis of No. 1 grade ex Fort William, was 6s OJd per busheL Storage, interest and bank charges amounted to 1 and 3-8, and the gross filing and office expenses to 1 8d per bushel.

From January 1, 1927, to January 1, 1928 the number of dairy herd, unprovetn'.ent asociations m the United States increased from 837 to 947, a gain of 13 per cent. The number of cows on test increased from 362,014 to 414,891, a gain of 14.6 per cent.

According to a statement issued by the Bureau of Agricultural Economics, Department of Agriculture, United States the 1928 wheat production in 42 countries is 3,590,822.000 bushels, as against 3,425,409,000 bushels in the same countries in 1927. These figures do not in.eivde production in Russia and China.

“At present, British consumption does not exceed one home-produced and one imported egg per week per head of the .population, arid the possibilities of increasing consumption by the supply of high-grade eggs are, as yet, hardly explored. The opportunites are enormeus.” —British. Ministry reports on Egg-marketing.

Advice is obtained in a publication received by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research that the British research Association of the woollen and worsted industries has patented a machine which, it is claimed, will produce woollen yarn on a ring frame that will have the characteristics of a mule-spun yarn, and have less variation than the ordinary yarns •n use in the industry. The main changes from the old types of spinning frame involve the install®.tian of heavier top rollers, while the delivery and draft rollers have been covered with carborundum, a new type of fall twist tube has been designed, a tension has been added, and a brake roller supplied. It is claimed that the improvements to the frame will make it possible to complete two and a-half times as much work a spindle as by the present mule, and that one girls will be able to' do as much in 100 spindle? as a man ; a. boy with the present machinery. It is understood that tests have proved succiessful. / A description of an instrument Which has been designed to assist in judging :he quality of wool is contained in a publication which has been received by the Council for Scientific and IndusTrial Research from the British Research Association for the woollen and worsted industries. Although it is admitted that great proficiency has been attained by the expert wool sorter the publication points out that the new insrument aims at eliminating the human element as far as possible. To use the instrument it is only necessary to place a small bunch of fibres between rhe holder provided. By switching on an electric lamp a magnified projection of the fibre appears on a screen, and is ready for measurement or compariso® with images from a set of slides made from standard types. The operation of inserting the sample and comparing it with the -standard slide occupies less than a minute. It- is understood that the cost of the instrument is approximately £2O. It is already in use in Great Britain and rs being sold in South Africa.