THE FARM.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXVI, Issue 18071, 8 January 1921, Page 10

THE FARM.

JOTTINGS. Love for your work is the key to success.

Keep store pigs in improving condition, and do not let them go back.

Keep the cows comfortable, clean, and healthy. They will repay you for your kindness.

No amount of farmyard manure and artificials has the same eltect as thorough cultivation.

There is no sense in forcing wools on to the market when nobody wants to buy, says an American stock paper.

If a dairyman, devotes your evenings to reading “agricultural propaganda” as pertaining to the better herd and adopt what is applicable.

It canbot be too strongly impressed upon the stack-builder that it is the interior of the stack, and not its outside walls, that should have most attention.

Exceptional prices were paid in England last August for dairy cattle. At Carlisle a cow in milk made £l2O and a heifer in calf brought £ll.

The Red Poll Society (England) proposes urging upon all members the desirability ot tests for butterfat being made ot every cow throughout the breed.

In a series of potato-growing tests, carried cut at the experimental farm of the University College of North Wales, the most successful of the first early varieties was Arran Rose. The heaviest yield was obtained from Arran Comrade.

Good, heavy oats are the main food needed in conditioning stallions They impart vigour and contain plenty of nourishment, while they do not prove unduly fattening, even when only a restricted amount of exercise is given.

The demand in England for Large Black pigs still continues keen, and latest advices give averages of £75 5s for 36 head and £63 for 57 head at a sale in Herefordshire. Bassingbourn Viscountess, daughter of a champion sow at Cardiff Royal Show realised 510 guineas. A sow, Chrisall Babs, sold for 400 guineas.

A pure-bred Australian merino ram, shorn recently on Messrs Montgomery and Todhunter’s Blackford Estate, yielded a phenomenal weight of wool, states the Christchurch Weekly Press. The ram was shorn less than 13 months previously, and the result ot the recent shearing was: —Weight of wool, 2911 b; weight of skirted fleece, 21 Jib. Other rams on the estate yielded 241 b and 361 b wool.

In the Queensland Legislative Assembly on November 24 the Minister for State Enterprises informed Mr. Corser that the number of cattle owned by the State stations was 173.657. The State Stations Department had not sold ony cattle outside the State, but had sold 605 head to butchers and 16,829 head to the

State butcheries. The average prices obtained were £lO per head for northern cattle, and £ll a head for southern cattle.

Poland-China pig breeders in the United States of America have disputed the claim of Mr. T. F. Hooley, Cambridge, England, that 700 guineas paid for his sow, Drayton’s Best of All. is a world’s record. Two years ago £2040 was paid for Colonel Jack; The Design brought £6OOO at a private sale, and early in the present year The Picket realised £12,000. In January, at Kansas City, a breeding sow Fashion Girl, sold for £3440. These were all Po-land-China pigs.

A yield of six tons of potatoes per acre removes 471 b of n.trogen, 21J lb. of phosphoric acid, and 76ilb of potash from the soil.

No pigs should ever be confined . i summer to paddocks or pens where there is no shade in the heat of the day. Being constantly exposed to the sun is a great discomfort and a check to progress.

Statistics show a decrease in the flocks of Great Britain during the past four ’•■“ars of nearly 3,000,000 sheep. Under war regulations and flat prices tor mutton, all incentive to increase flocks has been wanting.

Jersey milk is the richest in but-ter-fat and solid other than fat, and the fat globules are of a larger size than those of other breeds. Infants and young animals fed on Jersey milk always do well.

The continuance of remunerative prices for all classes of pigs should stimulate pig-keepers in securing the best results from their slock. Much more prolific and profitable litters of pigs would be obtained if more care were taken in breeding.

Jersey potato-growers have been shipping their crops out of. the island at such a rate that there was a shortage for the inhabitants, and an embargo has been placed on further exports. The piofits of the growers are reported to have been enormous.

In South Wales there are 52 agricultural co-operative societies and about 10,000 members, with an annual turnover of £750,000. In North Wales they numbered 83, with 9000 members, and an annual turnover of over £500,000.

Eight fashionably bred Shorthorns have recently been disposed of at a high figure to Danish buyers by an English breeder. There is an increasing demand in Denmark for pure-bred Shorthorns for dairying stock.

Lucerne, or alfalfa, was known as a forage crop to the Greeks, Romans, and Persians. At the present day it is extensively grown in Europe and Asia, also in the Dominions and in ihe United States of America.

Those breeds and types of animals which pay best in the greatest number of hands, under the widest range of conditions, are going to lead in numbers. In a big country like Australia, however, there is a place for every breed which is known to be peculiarly adapted to a given set of special conditions of soil and climate.

By using the information gained by milk-recording, to show which cows should be kept and which discarded, it is poss.ble to raise the average yield of a herd from 400 qr 150 gallons to as much as 650 or 700 gallons in the course of two or three years. The reports of the milk-recording societies in Great Britain show such cases to be common.

A young growing pig of from 8 to 12 weeks old is capable of laying on lib of live weight from every 41b of dry matter contained in a suitable food, thus representing a greater proportion of liv* Increase than that procured from any otner farm animal. In some cases, of course, 51b of meal may be required to produce the same increase, as the constitution of two animals is never exactly alike.

After careful experiments the owner of an up-to-date English dairy farm tells us (says London Live Stock Journal) that a heavy milk supply cannot be maintained without an abundant supply of food. “It must go in at the mouth,” he says. Further remarks by the same writer, while made in connection with English dairying chiefly, may be of some interest to thoce connected with the industry in New Zealand.

It is stated 'that the farmers ot Western Canada are organising a gigantic grain pool in an effort to increase wheat prices. The organisation is said to be favoured by all three provincial farmers’ bodies, and it is planned to become operative for the 1921 crops. The scheme provides that contract-holders must sign for five years, binding themselves to sell wheat only through the pool, which will embrace 8,000,000 acres, or 50 per cent, of the total wheat average.

As regards symptoms of tubercular disease, the general appearance of the pig is always suggestive. There may be cither a loose cough or, as in the majority of cases, a short harking cough. Shortness of breath, or panting on exertion, are very marked symptoms. The animal will not feed well, may show signs of not thriving or growing, will be restless, and may have looseness of the bowels, or may develop an abscess around ihe vent. As a rule, the cough is most marked when the pig exerts himself ip any way, or when coming out of the sty into the cold air.

A return of land settlement, dated May 31. which has been issued by the Ministry ot Agriculture, shows that the “otal number of applications received from ex-service men in England and Wales was 36,831. for 639.023 acres; 7818 men were awaiting interview or standing over, and 15.501 had been approved but not provided with holdings. Exservice men and civilians provided with holdings since December 18. 1918, numbered 7133, thi acreage being 105,305. The total acreage acquired for small holdings with the Minister’s approval since that date was 198,751.

It costs about the same to plough, plant cultivate, and harvest an acre of corn, whether the yield is 30 or 60 bushels an acre. In a series of experiments conducted by the Ohio State Agricultural College it was discovered that on those farms where the yield of corn was 36 bushels per acre, the, labour cost of producing it was 34 cents a bushel; but where the yield was 59 bushels the labour cost of production was but 21 cents a bushel. In the latter instance the price of corn or pork might drop materially, and still leave a net profit to the farmer, but with a 36-bushel yield a slight drop in price would ,mean a net loss to the farmer.