LINCOLN AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE.

Woodville Examiner, Volume VIII, Issue 868, 10 February 1892, Page 2

LINCOLN AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE.

T-iis College has (VhS ;>nich dining Urn past year to draw th;.- aUemiou ,il settlers to the inferior m ft mire;; s ■■ - vhich an.- pa'meti oil' on . , C i:i. a ins report the Director sink.LoOlv <>;;-''ii) at t-hp CV&Ur-

field Island guanos, and the Akaroa guanos; the values of the former range from £1 12a 3d to £3 16a 4d, and the latter from £1 11s Cd to £9 11s per ton. Yet in the market—in Chesterfield guanos, at any rate—little difference existed in the selling price of the various samples. As for adulteration, samples of bonedust show it in various degrees; the value of these, when compared with that of good samples, being the best test of the extent to which farmers are at times fleeced. I have said that good manures have, to a great extent, taken the place of the inferior ones in several districts of the colony, and this particularly applies to those manufactured in New Zealand. For instance, samples of superphosphate and of dried blood, obtained from the Belfast works, are now excellent of their kind, and, in the case of the firstnamed were last year as cheap as the imported, whilst the latter is cheaper than any manure of its class that I know of. Mr Wilkinson’s examination of seeds shows the existence at times of adulteration, of substitution, and that old and weak seeds are sometimes sold. This, though I know that but few of the really bad samples of seeds on the market reach us, for obvious reasons. I would, however, direct attention to Mr Wilkinson’s observations respecting the presence of the seeds of the creeping (here called the California) thistle in alsike clover. In one case, one of the seeds found was sown in our garden, and produced a very fine specimen of this dreaded weed. This was carefully dug up, and all discoverable roots destroyed, but during the autumn I myself dug up from time to time twenty-five shoots from small pieces of root left behind after the thorough digging-out the plant had been subjected to. Few have an idea how difficult it is to get rid of this weed, and how easily it may be introduced to the land. It is evident that growers of alsike should be particularly careful that the seed purchased by them is quite free from the seed of this thistle.”