FARM NOTES

Waipa Post, Volume 45, Issue 3252, 8 November 1932, Page 7

FARM NOTES

LIME AND SALT.

THriR VALUE IN STOCK

RAISING.

It 3s worthy of note by farmers that wherever Nature has been particularly profuse in her supplies by any mineral, that mineral will usually be found to be required in very large quantities for the conduct of production from the land or for the health of man and beast. Lime and salt are specific instances of such essential minerals.

Whether we yet realise the full value of these two in relation to primary production is doubtful, but year by year research workers are finding out more and morie regarding the value of these simple substances.

It was recognised a hundred years ago in England that salt, used in moderation, was a valuable soil fertiliser. An agricultural writer of that time stated: "The employment of common salt as an agricultural agent has, during the last eight years, been gradually extending, and from an annual consumption of scarcely five tons per annum has rapidly increased till at length, several thousand tons of impure salt of all kinds were, in the year 1892, sold for agricultural purposes." He goes on to give instances where the yields of barley and oats were increased from 30 bushels to 51 bushels per acre as the result of an application of " 16 bushels of salt to the acre." Fortunately, the agriculturists of those days did not use salt discreetly as a fertiliser, with the rdsult that continued heavy dressings ultimately had an adverse effect. There is little doubt, however, that salt in moderation is as necessary to the healthy growth of the plant as it is to the animal, and it is probable that it may be used more extensively in this direction in the future. Lime has been long recognised as an amelioration of soil texture and stimulant of healthy plant growth. It enters, probably m'ore than any other mineral, into the composition of all rocks, soil, and plant and animal bodies. While farmers generally recognise the necessity of lime for live stock in the building of bone and flesh it is probably not generally known that calcium has a very big influence on *the reproductive activities of the animal.

Large-scale practical experiments conducted at Cambridge (England) with pigs reveal the fact that lime and protein deficiencies in the food are mainly responsible for the smallness of litters and even for sterility. The gilts that have been killed during pregnancy have shown conclusively that the relative smallness of litters is due entirely to the degeneration of embryos and not to a scarcity of eggs. This condition has been corrected by supplying the animals with calcium in the form of boneflour, when all embryos have developed normally."