530 



TEE AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 



the demand for them has yearly in- 

 creased, and considerable quantities are 

 now being sold in Durban and to a lesser 

 extent in Maritzburg and Estcourt. It 

 would be useless to advise farmers 

 situated a long way from any market to 

 go in for making these " fancy " cheeses, 

 as they are not suitable kinds for tran- 

 sporting a long distance by road. But 

 farmers within a reasonable distance of a 

 railway or market could easily undertake 

 to make them, and they would find that 

 the making of this kind of cheese would 

 be a fur more remunerative way of deal- 

 ing with their milk during the summer 

 months when the markets for butter are 

 usually glutted. In pushing the sale of 

 these Continental cheeses from a mer- 

 chant's point of view, the greatest diffi- 

 culty so far has been in keeping up a 

 steady supply. For as soon as a demand 

 is created and the public have acquired a 

 taste for them, suddenly the supplies 

 practically dwindle down to almost noth- 

 ing, and the natural consequence is that 

 the demand once created is lost, and con- 

 siderable difficulty is experienced in 

 working up a sale the second time. The 

 above difflculty of regulating supply and 

 demand applies to all Dairy Products in 

 the Colony, but so far the demand has 

 nearly always been in excess of the sup- 

 plies. 



Agricultural Shows. 

 During the year 1899 I judged Dairy 

 Produce at the following shows in the 

 order named :— Pietermaritzburg, Est- 

 court, Newcastle, Bulwer, Ixopo, Lady- 

 smith, Howick, Richmond, Durban, New 

 Hanover, aad Noodsberg. In 1900 there 

 was only one show held in the Colony, 

 this being at Howick. No doubt owing 

 to the war and through the fact that this 

 was the only show held, it was not up to 

 its usual standard. The entries for butter 

 were not very numerous, but the quality 

 was very good, and the 1st and 2nd prize 

 bntters were excellent samples of what 

 really good butter ought to be. There is 

 no special comment needed in regard to the 

 rest of the shows I visited. The butter 

 exhibits at Maritzburg, Estcourt, Bulwer, 

 Howick. Richmond, and Durban were 

 exceptionally uniform and of good quality, 

 although the entries might have been 

 more numerous. At the rest of the shows, 

 although in some instances there were 



more entries, there was a grea want of 

 uniformity, and a good many of the 

 samples -exhibited were considerably be- 

 low show standard, the chief faults being 

 streakiness, excess of moisture, and an un- 

 tidy external appearance. These are all 

 faults which can be avoided in making 

 butter, and it is to be hoped that with a 

 little more instruction, and more care 

 exercised on the part of the makers, these 

 faults will in the future be conspicuous 

 by their absence. 



I should also like to see better accorn- 

 modation provided for Dairy Produce in 

 the shape of a separate stand or table. At 

 present one too often sees butter and 

 cheese placed in close proximity to hams, 

 bacon, lard, poultry, etc., and this is not a 

 very good object lesson to the public, who 

 naturally think that, if this is the way Dairy 

 Products are staged at shows, it must also 

 be the way in which butter, milk, etc., 

 are kept at the farm dairies. Several 

 secretaries of agricultural shows have 

 kindly made the necessary alterations, and 

 where it has not been possible to have a 

 separate stand for the Dairy Exhibits, 

 they have so arranged that nothing but 

 the' bottle fruits, eggs, and bread exhibits 

 are placed next the Dairy Products. 



(End Part i.) 



Captain Buckworth Powell had a curious 

 stroke of luck over the Cambridgeshire, which 

 was won by Lozenge in the decider after a dead 

 heat with Wolsey. He had had a legacy of ilOO 

 from an old relative, and, much disappointed at 

 receivino- so little, decided to " have a flutter 

 on the race. He selected Lozenge, and, placing 

 his legacy in driblets all round the lists, he got 

 £10,C00 to £100 and won it. 



The late Sir Tatton Sykes ascribed the de- 

 terioration of English harness and saddle horses 

 to four causes :— (1) The improvement of the 

 roads in the principal horse-breeding districts ot 

 Northern England, whereby the saddle horse 

 for attending fairs, &c., was displaced by the 

 farmer's gig ; (2) the repeal of the statute which 

 forbade the export of mares, which he con- 

 sidered had a far more injurious result than the 

 improved roads ; (3) the improved system of 

 agriculture : when the virtue of bone manure 

 w"a8 discovered, farmers were able to raise 

 crops on land which had theretofore not been 

 worth cultivation, and ts put Shorthorns and 

 Leicester sheep on pastures which, in their 

 natural poor state, had been given up to brood 

 mares ; (4) the spread of railways, which 

 operated in the same way as the better roads. 



