Agricultural Affairs.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XXIX, Issue 5402, 15 April 1909, Page 4

Agricultural Affairs.

Sorghum is one of the lurgoat yield iug crops end one of tho most pule tnble to all furm stock.

An expert observes that few foods equal peas when judiciously associated with othor foods iu producing a wellflavoured, good - textured pork and bacon.

What is usually called “ cold ” Boil is due mostly to excess of water, which finds no outlet by sinking into it, nnd is forced to evaporate from the surface. This takes so much heat from the soil that vegetation will not readily grow in it. In the course of an address, Mr M Murphy, president of the Canterbury Agricultural and Pastoral Association, Baid that kainit was a natural salt obtained from mines in Germany, and therefore a manufactured article sold as genuine kainit was a frnud ; yet there were factories sending out a spurious article and evading the Adulterated Foods Act.

Gentleness and good treatment are as essential to the well-being of tho dairy cow as proper feed. A cow that is kept in a state of fear and apprehension is in no condition to do her natural best work in the way of producing high grade milk. Cows and dogs are not natural companions either.

A report that the wool grown in Now Zealand has docreased iu length during the last few years has been verified by Mr Whitehead, who acts ns judgo of fleeces at the British Royal Show. He stated that the decreased length was more noticeable in the Linooln than the Romneys. He thought that if the New Zealand Romney wpol was washed on the sheep before ahoaring, as in England, it would be difficult to tell it in many cases from the Shropshire. General Fred Smith, an eminent authority on veterinary physiology, us well as practical military vetorinary surgeon, includes, uinong other rules for physiological shooing, “fitting the shoe accurately to the outline of the foot, not altering tho lattor to fit tho shoo. Rasping the crust to fit the shoe not only renders horn brittle, but is so much loss of bearing surface.”

It appears, from observation and experiment, that cows with the most highly strung nerves are, as u rule, the best milkers. Large, strong-built unimnls, which urc often spokon of ns possessing great constitution, are frequently tuintod with constitutional and hereditury disease, nnd small, neatly-shaped animals are usually hardy, und of perfectly sound constitution.

Tho Ainericnn agricultural experts are now advising farmors to adopt the field fertiliser, or plot system teßt. By this method long, narrow strips of the field to bo tested are measured off side by side. The crop is sown uniformly over each. Different fertilisers are applied to oach plot, leaving every third or fourth one unfertilised. These equalised plots are harvested separately and weighed. Iu this manner the farmer can tell what fertiliser is best suited for his need.

The number of pigs kept in the United States, said a lecturer the other day, was 40,000,000, and the exported pork products to tho value of £12,000,000 annually. Denmark

is also alive to the pig industry, where they combine it with dairying. From one baoon faotory in 1888 the num ber had increased to 82 in 1906, capable of treating 1,000,000 pigs annually, bringing in a total revenue of £3,500,000. A practical dairyman gives in an Auckland paper the following as his method of feeding the dairy oalf: — "Tfeed a little oalf some food just as soon as it is old enough to take it, and I keep it growing, not on fattening food, like oorn meal, but on such feeds as bran and oats, a little bit of oil meal, a little ensilage, a little clover hay, eto. You will be surprised how soon calves will oat it. We feed them on new milk for the first two or three weeks, and then gradually work off into skim milk, putting a little skim milk with the new milk, adding more gradually until finally we feed all skim milk, keeping it up until they are six or eight months old, giving about 61b at a feed. If they are yet hungry they get to eating something else so much the quioker.

An American writer shows how much is required of a farm labourer in the United States in return for such wages as about £4 per month, with board and lodgings -“He must be down by 4 a m., and work until 6 a.ra., when he has 20 minutes for breakfast; then work until noon ; 35 to 40 minutes for dinner ; then work until 6or 7 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, tough steak, bread, poor butter, and worse coffee. The dinner is the same, except that the kind of meat may vary ; another vegetable is added, and a pie. A rest of 15 minutes is the rule. Supper is the same as breakfast, with the possible addition of oake and stewed fruit.” The employment in many oases 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 winter.

In the PastornlistH’ Review Mr 11. Gutbrie-Smith writes on bush farming, land settlement and the timber question in the North Island. He says:—“The individual holdings in the bush districts are almost without exception already small, and will tend to become smaller, for, as hns been shown, very satisfactory returns can be obtained from blocks that a man can work with his labour only. These sized holdings are sure, therefore, to increase, and with their multiplication the Dominion will become more politically stable ; in fact, the subdivision of land going on so rapidly over New Zealand has already given State Socialism a preliminary check ; its death-blow will oome when the freeholders triumph and the farmers in the South and the bush settlers in the North—all Government tenants, in fact —acquiro the fee simple of their holdings. In conclusion, a word may be said in regard to the charge so often and so recklessly made—the charge of destruction of valuable timber. At any rate in Poverty Bay and the East Coast any timber fallen and burnt is either of poor quality or impossible to bring away; the charge, in fact, stultifies itself, ns throughout Now Zealand the value of timber is too great to make its wanton destruction other than an act of the highest economic folly.”