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254. Every endeavour has been made to improve the property by making
pakka roads cleaning and levelling fields and tree-planting; a pakka road has
been made through the Mundiawala block and another to the Chowni stock
yards whilst the roads and fields have been raised and levelled in the latter.
All masonry outlets of water-courses have been put in order.
255. The important question of tree-planting has received as much attention
as possible. Nurseries have been established in the Mundiawala, Chowni and
Sully blocks and over 700 young trees have been planted along the roads and
water-courses. It is hoped that during the coming year 1,000 more may be
transplanted.
256. Better accommodation is being provided for the sheep by utilizing
some old disused stock yards, fencing off runs and putting them in order.
257. The Dutch Barns which were useless at Sully have been moved to the
Home Farm and used to roof over the Machinery so protecting it from the
weather.
258. Thanks to the favourable rains, there was good grazing in the bir and
the stock remained in excellent condition during the year. The barani crops
were also very good. It would have been easy enough to collect a lakh of
maunds of first class reserve hay if circumstances had allowed of this being
done. Unfortunately however the good rains did not prove to be an unmixed
blessing. Fever was exceedingly rife amongst the people, the farmers' crops
were excellent and labor already very scarce, commanded very high wages, as
much as a rupee a day and two meals being paid by ordinary farmers during the
harvest. Instead therefore of being able to take on extra labour from outside
nearly half our ploughmen and gwalas absconded and in order to retain the
remainder we had to pay batta. We could not, however, obtain sufficient
labour at any price as it was not available. We had therefore to content
ourselves with making about 30,000 maunds of good hay in addition to getting
in our cultivated crops. Mr. Burke, who was in charge at this time, worked
exceedingly hard and the results are due to his energy.
259. A good deal of damage was caused to the bir by fires due to sparks
from passing engines. Several occurred during the year, one destroying over
three miles of good grazing and a stack of hay, whilst considerable difficulty
was experienced in preventing further loss. These fires are a source of
constant anxiety and representations have been made to Government with a
view to having spark arrestors placed on the engines. Nine stacks of old hay,
in which but little nourishment remains, have been struck off and will be used
as bedding grass.
260. During the earlier months of the year a good deal of loss was caused
by Charbon Symptomatique in the young stock and it was eventually decided to
inoculate all the young animals against this disease. A single vaccine, Black-
legoids, was selected for the purpose and to Mr. Burke fell the unenviable task
of carrying out the inoculation: considering that the cattle are practically
wild it is very creditable to him that he carried out the work with only one
casualty. The results have been satisfactory, only one death having so far
occurred from the disease since the inoculation was done last August. All
calves are now inoculated against Blackleg when they are branded and no
deaths have occurred.
261. One small outbreak of Hæmorrhagic Septicæmia occurred but was
stamped out with the loss of only 41 animals.
262. We were unfortunate enough to get an outbreak of contagious Pneu-
monia amongst the donkey breeding stock which was promptly dealt with by
segregation but we lost 13 donkeys from the disease before it could be got
under.
263. Foot and Mouth disease also gave a certain amount of trouble but did
not cause any mortality.
264. Open as the Farm is to the attacks of contagious disease, constant
watchfulness is necessary to prevent an epidemic by adopting prompt measures