ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL INTELLIGENCE.

Wellington Independent, Volume XXVI, Issue 3250, 13 July 1871, Page 3

ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL INTELLIGENCE.

V [Melbourne Leader.] Perhaps the most important items of news brought by the mail steamer Eangoon are those announcing a rise in the price of wool at the April sales, and the firmness of the Australian preserved meat trade. It is by means of theso industries that tve are enabled to obtain some of the surplus capital of the old world to help us in developing the resources of this new country. Thanks to the energy and perseverance of Mr Tallerman, this industry is fast becoming firmly established. It will, however, rest with our stockowuers to maintain the character our preserved meats have already acquired. Cereals we are informed were " steady," dependiug as cereals mostly do on the weather. As regards these, most farmers havingalrcady sold their grain, we have only an interest as buyers, and in this respect the mail news is favorable to the consumer. Prices are likely to rise in the neighboring colonies and they regulate the prices with us, except through the operations of speculators, a«d these will be regulated by the prospects as the season advances. The weather during the month of March and the beginning of April had been cold and blustering. Winter wheats have suffered much from the ravages of wire worm ; but the young spring corn at our latest date (22nd April) was emerging fast from the soil, and should no serious check be experienced, the latenesss of the season it was hoped may prove advantageous as regards the general yield. The previous season was one of the driest experienced since 1826, and the past winter has been most severe ; so much so that it is said the summer of 1870 and the winter of 1870 71 will not soon fade from the memory of farmers. In the midland counties hay is scarce and its value high. The dry summer and the hard winter have taught farmers a lesson that Victorian farmers ought to bear in mind, viz., that it is not well to dependent as regards fodder on the produco of one season. "An old haystack," it is said, "is both ornamental and useful." The question of the utilisation of town sewage, surrounded as it is by so many difficulties, still continues to receive a considerable amount of attention. A lengthy paper on the subject was read by Mr H. 3 Morgan, Secretary to the Metropolis Sewage Company, before the Institute of Surveyors, in which farmers are sharply rebuked for being so reluctant to deviate from our courses. Hitherto sewage farming does not appear to have been attended by any brilliant success, and the " Food Journal" points out the following as a new source of danger :— j " The researches of Dr Spencer Cobbold on the entozoa that arises from sewage irrigation are calculated to throw us into still deeper perplexity as to the course we should adopt in dealing with the sewage question. At the present stage of that experiment, irrigation seems to be the most profitable and the most practicable ; but a new danger threatens us from this question, viz., the introduction into the human system of countless parasites and entozoa through the medium of cattle fed upon sewage irrigation grass. The worst of it is that cattle which thus act as ' bearers' of these abominable interlopers seldom show signs of the disease in themfcelves, as they appear to have the capability of resisting the effects of the presence of the parasites, except when the sufferers are young, as in the case of calves. Again, so little outward signs of disease does the meat show, that butchers are perfectly unconsiouß of it ; but Dr Cobbold has microscopically demonstrated the presence of thousands of entozoa in pork which to the eyo appeared perfectly healthy. It is his deliberate opinion that there are now in this country thousands of cattle which aro thoroughly meazled, and which cannot be said to be safe as food for man. The subject is so new, that we are at present ignorant of the effects or of the amount of damage committed by parasites; but it is worthy of the most careful study." In reference to the growth of flax, to which our neighbors in South Australia are devoting considerable attention, we have the following from a County Kilkenny farmer, writing to the Belfast Flax Extension Association :— " From tny experience of the flax crop, I would advise every farmer to sow some, as I havo found it pay on an average, since I began, seven year 3 ago, nearly double as much as corn. If I had land as good as some farmers in this locality, and were to get the satn' 1 price as I have for the last three years, it would shortly pay as much as would purchase the fee simple of tho land." The " Agricultural Gazette" contains an

illustration of a novel mode of drying the sheaves of wheat and meadow grass in wet seasons. These are taken from tbe prize essay of Mr W. A. Gibbs, published in the transactions of the Highland Agricultural Society. Tho plan consists of placing the grain or hay to be dried in a chamber containing perforated conical tabes, through which hot air is driven by means of steam or horse- power. The grain or hay is thus dried, it is said, at less cost than in the open air. The expense of drying a load of hay in one of those drying chambers being 3s whilst ia the open air on a fine afternoon the cost of drying a load was 4s. We notice this simply as indicating the spirit of progress that animates farmers in the old country, but in the dry climate we enjoy such drying chambers are not needed. In fact, in the generality of seasons our grain and hay are aptto become too dry. The same journal directs attention to the means adopted by the Royal Society for the purpose of promoting agricultural education. These have hitherto been its exhibitions audits publications. In this way the produce of the soil and stock have been increased, and the current generation of farmers educated. Now through the prize farm system a more direct courso is being entered upon, which it is calculated will excise importantinfluences, andbeproductive of good results. Our contemporary, after pointing out the duties of landowners to their tenants, concludes with the following suggestion : — "What a grand thing would be a sweepstakes among the landowners of a district possessing estates above 5000 acres, each putting down £100 — with sufficient competitors to raise £1000 a year, as a prize fund to be awarded by the Royal Agricultural Society of England. The cup, as an heirloom, would be more valued in a generation or t«vo than twenty Emperor's Cups won on the turf." The history of the double furrow plough has been brought out at a trial before the Scottish Court Session. Tho pursuers in the action were Messrs John Fowler and Co., steam plough manufacturers, Leeds, and assignees of Thomas Pirie, of Nether Kinmundy, Aberdeenshire ; and the defenders were Messrs John Gray and Co., Uddingston, by Glasgow. Several witnesses were examined on both sides, among others Mr Pirie himself. It would appear that Mr Pirie took out letters patent for his invention of " improvements in ploughs," in 1868, and assigned the samo to the Messrs Fowler and Co., in 1869. The trial lasted four days and resulted iv a verdict for the pursuers on all the issues, the jury findingthat "Mr Pirie was Vie true inventor of the inveution, and that tho defenders has infringed the patent by using the invention." Thus the ingenious inventor of this boon to cultivators is not allowed to be defrauded of the reward I of his genius ; and we feel sure that every farmer who reads the results of this trial will feel pleased with the verdict. The cultivation of kohi rabi is attract a good deal of attention among British farmers. This root, which is a native of Lapland, resembles in its qualities the Swedish turnip, and requires much the same sort of cultivation. It stauds transplanting well, is extremely hardy, yields heavy crops of roots weighing from eight to ten pounds each ; possesses fattening properties superior to the swede, and grow best on a light sandy loam. Kohi-rabi is much used lor filling in blanks that occur in the mangle crops, and we remember it being turned to account successful in this way by Mr Skilling at the experimental farm, in the Eoyal Park. Foot and mouth disease appear to b:> dying out in several counties where it was prevalent; but from the veterinary department of the Privy Council we learn that on the continent rinderpest js still spreading in France and Belgium, in defiance of the measures which have been adopted fonts eradication. In the north, east, and western provinces of France the cattle plague is raging almost uachecked. In Normandy and Brittany it also prevails extensively. Across the eastern frontier tho disease passed into Neuchatel, and rapidly infected several herds of milch cows ; but the dicovery of disease was promptly followed by the employment of means for its repression, and there is no information of the further spread of the plague in Switzerland. Cattle plague continues to prevail in Gallicia and Trausylvana, and also in Poland. Prussia has so far escaped with slight loss. We find the following on the use of salt in the " Mark Lane Express" of the 17th April : — " A correspondent requests information on the application of salt as a top dressing for barley. Looking upon this question as of considerable importance, and knowing that the use of salt in agriculture is neither so well understood or practised as it ought to be, we propose as showing that common salt (chloride of sodium) enters into the composition of all plants, especially forage or bulbous ones, in some of which — mangolds, for instance — the proportion of salt in the ashes constitutes from 43 to 53 per cent, or nearly an average of one half of the weight, the cereal plants containing a much smaller proportion, and it is therefore unimpared in fertility. The way in which salt acts upon cereal plants is both direct and indirect : not only does it enter itself into the composition of the plant, but it prepares its other constituents for assimulation. It is found also that salt assists the decomposition of inert or vegetable matter, without injuring the growing vegetation ; that it promotes the growth of plants on drained lands, although it is not suited to heavy undrained ; that it attracts and retains moisture in the soil, rendering it less liable to be frozen ; that salt and water are destructive to the wireworm, slugs, and other vermin ; that it strengthens the straw of cereals, whilst it increases the weight and improves the quality of the grain. It is peculiarly adapted to root crops and barley, but is also beneficial to crops of all kinds in a certain proportion, and in certain localities. Thus it is not proper to apply salt to lands on the sea coast, whore large quantities of it are deposited from time to time, in the spray from the ocean and from the saline atmosphere. Also in other localities, where a large proportion of the chlorides and soda are detected by analysis. Nor should it be repeated too often, or when salt has been employed infeeding cattle, by which the dung has been saturated with it, or when seaweed has been employed as a manure, the salt it contains being sufficient for every purpose of utility."