The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1888-06-09 00:00:00

AGRICULTURAL IT.EMS.

SKIMIED MILK is so cheap a form of food (remarks
the Graphic) that our unthrifty peasantry neglects and
despise it. The example of the upper classes is not
always followed by their social interiors. Despite the
snobbishness and imitation of one's betters which are
expressed in the very word " flunkeyism," who ever
heard of the abused flunkey drinking claret like his
;mister, or caring for Camembert, or tasting olives?
SO much for town life, and in the country we have
known the use of skimmed milk for various purposes
in good houses utterly fail to change the underlings'
view of the matter. it seems an astonishing thing tc
say, but it is a plain fact that many useful, cheap, and
neglected articles steal into favour only through the
adulterator. Lecturing at Framlingham recently, Dr.
Elliston was not content with deploring the waste of
skimmed milk, but went on to point out how the fat
abstracted can be cunningly replaced with a little suet,
and the whole welded together, as it were, by an easy
process, until it is equal in all nutritive powers to new
milk, and, of course, a good deal cheaper. Dr.
Elliston's words now need but a commercial in-
terpreter.

THE MANAGEMENT OF THE DAIRY Will ROW require
(observes the Gardeners' Magazine) a much closet
supervision than at any other season of the year, and
those who have not had much experience will dc
well to make note of the fact that the slightest taint
will spread far, and the weather will have no mercy
on the sloven. Whatever thti skill in management,
all may be undone by one careless hand, and scrupu-
lous cleanliness underlies success in everything. Al]
the waste of the dairy should go to the pigs as soon
as possible; it is no use to keep bowls of milk
souring, and it is even better to lose the last skim-
ming than tempt the elements. The pigs will not
object to the shadow of cream on their milk, even if it
come to that; but no one likes to put good milk intc
the pig trough while there are women and children
withinreach to consume it. This reminds us that the
pig is an interesting animal, and of some importance
where there is any waste of farm, garden, and dairy
produce. It is the most profitable animal man has
ever taken into his keeping, and one of the most
easily managed. Everybody who can command the
convenience should go in for pigs, and this is the
best time to begin pig keeping. In common with
other things that have been improved by careful
breeding, the best breeds are the most profitable,
while of course they are the most interesting.
Starving the cow is a common practice, and merits
attention. A half-starved cow yields milk small in
quantity and poor in quality. On the other hand, a
liberal supply of pea or bean meal, or oil-cake, and
I other food rich in nitrogenous and phosphatic
j elements, will be repaid by an abundance of milk of
I the finest quality.

"TILE PRAcricAL Veurs OF DUNG as Compared
with Artificial Manures," is the title of an able paper
contributed to the new issue of the journal of the
Royal Agricultural Society of England, by Mr. R.
Vallentine, of Burcott, Leighton Buzzard. "Dung,"
says he, "is merely what is added to the straw. If one
waters one ton of straw, and does nothing else but let
it lie about for a time, something like four tons of
mere wet straw-dung may be obtained. The manurial
value of a ton of straw is estimated at about 10s.,
therefore four tons of merely wetted straw is only
worth 2s. 6d. a ton as dung. On the other hand, if a
ton of straw be used as a litter for 20 weeks for a
fattening bullock, receiving about 171bs. per day of
cake—say of cotton and linseed cake—besides Clover,
hay, and roots, the original ton of straw has most
costly additions made to it. Is the manure worth the
extra cost and additions? Most people would answer,
No. As few farmers have either boxes or covered
yards to preserve any kind of manure, what part of
the original value of the manure in the food would
remain after repeated washings? Just in proportion
to the number and thoroughness of the washings we
may suppose; and these are frequent enough in all
ordinary seasons. Again, when dung does contain a
good per-centage of nitrogen, it seldom shows such
favourable results in the crops as artificial manures,
containing much less in quantity, but in a more
readily available form.

"TinE COST OF OILCAKE dung is apparently very
great. The notion that the land will get richer is
true; but will the ordinary farmer who makes it get
richer or poorer? Artificial manures have hitherto
produced crops of both corn and roots fully better
than dung. If dunging is partially or wholly left off
the crops fall off. Then where is the permanency of
dung? If artificial manures containing both phos-
phates and nitrogen are used it is known on the best
possible authority—that of Sir John Lawes--that
after more than forty years' trial neither does the soil
get poorer nor the crops get worse. Further, dung
may be applied in very large quantities to all kinds
of crops, and although the soil becomes richer and
richer the crops never increase in proportion, nor yet
at all in fact, as the yield of corn on dunged land—
dunged heavily for forty years—does not increase.

"PEOPLE WITO KNOW least about artificial manures
condemn them. Many say nitrate of soda is the
great criminal charged with scourging, wearing out
the land, and dning all the evil possible in every
respect to the land. Can an authentic account be
really obtained of any farm that has been really in-
jured by the judicious use of artificials ? What
farmer who knows anything much about artificials
would use nitrate of soda or ammonia salts year after
year alone without phosphates? No one could con-
tinue to do so without loss.

" C.kTTLS FOODS of various kinds no doubt contain
the amounts of manurial ingredients hich chemists
assign to them, and the loss by consumption may also
be fairly enough estimated. For all this, in real prac-
tice, by making dung from dear food and applying it
to the land, there is usually a considerable loss when
the crops are produced. Dung does not act so quickly
as artificials, a small percentage only coming into
immediate use. The residue of dung loft often assist-
ing one crop is subjected to continual loss by the
usual rainfall in winter, and this for the four or five
years that elapse before the dung is again applied.

"1w VERY WET SEASONS even dung produces no
very visible effect on crops. The soluble ingredients
of value may be washed away as soon as produced.
Whatever theory there may be on the matter of loss,
every farmer found that in the unusually wet season
of 1879 the dunged crops appeared to suffer as much
as where artificials were used. Nor were the crops
much better after any kind of manuring than when
nothing was applied. Practically, however, there is
an enormous loss of manurial matter from dung
before it reaches the field. In too many instances I
have not the slightest doubt that much more than
half of the most valuable ingredients of the dung are
washed away and utterly lost, so far at least as the
producer is concerned."
'

STRANGE, most strange it is (remarks the "Home
Farm" editor of the Journal of Horticulture) that
anyone paying ordinary attention to passing events
should by any possibility take a wrong view of the
cause and remedy of the agricultural depression. Yet
we not unfrequently hear the most extraordinary
reasons advanced for it, and which are altogether
beside the mark. The work of our great agricultural
societies is mentioned with a sneer; the value of the
teaching at Cirencester and Downton is not simply
questioned, but, with the presumptuous folly of that
outspoken conceit which is the invariable concomitant
of ignorance, it is termed worthless. Agricultural
experiments, too, come in for a full share of con-
demnation, while chemical manures are said to have
poisoned the soil, to have rendered it barren and
worthless, and to have contributed more than any-
thing else to the ruin of farmers. It was only a short
time ago that we were assured a thousand acres of
soil had been rendered worthless for agricultural pur-
poses by the use of nitrate of soda, and one of our
own bailiffs objected to the use of fish salt as a
manure because he thought it caused the soil "to
run together and become hard." Yet this very in-
dividual has for the last three years been using potash
and other salts extensively with very profitable
results, but then he had never heard the term of salt
applied to them.

WELL, NOW, the only way to contend with such
ignorance, if we notice it at all, is not by mere
argument, but by the irrefragible proof of tangible
results. At a meeting of the members of a farmer's
club for a discussion of the relative value of manures,
we had been telling them, among other things, of the
wonderful crop of barley obtained at Flitcham Abbey
by the use of muriate of potash, and we were much
amused by one of them farming the land of an entire
parish himself, who after declaring farmyard manure
to be the sheet-anchor of farmers, turned to us with
the question, "What is muriate of potash ? " He was
evidently impressed by the Flitcham success, and it
is just possible he is a purchaser of considerable quan-
tities of potash this season. The most remarkable
effects of potash is, however, not always perceptible
in the crop to'which it is applied, but rather in those
of the following year or two.

His other name—" Boy, what is your name ?'•
"Robert, sir." "Yes, but I mean your other name ?"

" Bob, sir."
NICE life a married man leads when every time he
asks his wife for a cup of tea he knows she'll make it
hot for him.
IT seems to have been a very common fashion in
Devonshire, says "Door Life of the Rev. John
Russell," for gentlemen of standing in the county to
adopt the native dialect. For instance, a colonel in
the North Devon Militia were reviewing his regiment,
and seeing a hare jump up in the midst of toe men he
shouted wildly, "There he go'th, boys, a lashing
great shaver !" Then, forgetting the exact point at
which lie had ceased to give the word of command, he
turned round said, "Where wor I, drummer boy ?"
" Present arms, sir," responded the youth; and the
inspection went on. Another Devon Colonel of
militia, not liking the word "retreat," gave the com-
mand thus, charge, my brave b'ys, charge! Us
bain't voxes, and they bain't hounds; us'll face em
like men." The collision was awful—men, horses,
and accoutrements strewing the ground on every
side, several troopers being more or less injured,
while one positively refused to mount again, saying,
" l've a-brok my breeches already, cap'n, and I won't
mount no more I"