332 Agricultural Gazette of N.S.W, [May 3, 1920. 



account of his experiments in feeding the pear to his dairy stock, a flood irt 



the Hunter having destroyed the standing crops. His description of his 



experience in cooking the pear is very much the same as the later experience 



in the Camden district to be described, and should be carefully read. 



Speaking of the utilisation of pear for ensilage the writer tells how he made a 



stack of green maize, sorghum, and twenty loads of prickly pear. In the 



Gazette for the following July, p. 504, Mr. Boyce describes his further 



experience as follows : — 



In my article in Gazette of April last I mentioned that T had included twenty loads of 

 prickly pears in a stack of ensilage with maize and sorghum. I now have the pleasure 

 of forwarding you a sample and reporting unqualified success. The cattle like the pears^ 

 (juite as well as the other constituents of the ensilage, and prefer these pears to the 

 bteamed pears, which I am still giving them. 



The ensilage was made in a stack in the open, and pressed with home-made mechanical 

 appliances and covered with iron. Owing to the drought the stack is only a small one^ 

 which makes my present triumph the greater. The base of the stack is 19 ft. x 16 ft. 

 6 in., and onlj- ;i Jeet high in its compressed state. I estimate that the pears amount to 

 one-third of the whole stack. In building the stack I put alternate layers of pears and 

 maize and sorghum, four loads of pears in one layer, but never allowing the pears to be 

 nearer than a foot to the edge. 



At present I am feeding the cows on this ensilage, steamed pears, and barley, all on 

 the same day. There is also a good picking of green herbage, yet everything is eaten up 

 clean. The milk test is at present 4 per cent, of butter-fat, which is amongst the 

 highest at my creamery. 



Now, as this ration has a good proportion of prickly pear the facts stated prove that 

 there is considerable virtue in the much despised prickly pear. It only remains for me 

 to aHd that the pears were placed in the stack whole, including thorns and roots, the 

 largest bunches being afterwards chopped to flatten them. The heat and ferment of the 

 silo has softened the thorns and rendered them harmless. I always add a bag or 

 more of coarse salt to a stack to make the fodder more palatable. 



Other stock-owners in different paits of this State and Queensland have- 

 experimented in the same direction, but I cannot learn that pear silage is a 

 success. 



In the Cape Agricidtaral Journal for January, 1900, p. 52, is a record of 

 a small and not altogether satisfactory experiment with prickly pear and 

 mealies (maize). Although the editor asked for records of further experi-^ 

 ments, none were forthcoming. 



Experience in the United States is not favourable : — 



The Messrs. Furnish, of Spotford, Texas, attempted it one year, but on account of 

 the improper construction of the silo nothing came of the experiment. 



There is but little use in the preparation of ensilage from cactus. One can alway.s- 

 gather this plant in the green state at any time of the jear, and the object of going, 

 to the trouble and expense of placing the material in a silo is not very evident. 

 Apparently there is little or nothing to gain, and the expense is considerable. The 

 only way in which this can be made profitable is to mix the chopped pear with some- 

 other much drier feed in the silo. fU.S. Bulletin 74, 1905.) 



A SAMPLK of grit, submitted to the Department for examination as supposedly 

 poisonous to pigeons, was found on analysis to contain 3'35 per cent, of 

 common salt. An excessive percentage of salt in the food has frequently 

 been found to be injurious, especially to poultry, and probably it was the- 

 cause of the trouble in the present in.stance. The grit should be washed 

 before being suppliei to the pigeons. — F. B. Guthrie, 



