FOREIGN AGRICULTURAL NEWS. 
FOREIGN AGRICULTURAL NEWS, 
By the steamer Niagara we are in receipt of our 
; 1 journals to - 2d December. 
Markets. — Ashes, a good inquiry. Cotton, an ad- 
vance from one §u. to id., with an active demand. 
F nd Grain, dull, with a slight fall in prices. 
Provisions the same. Hemp, an advance, and light 
stock on hand. Wool, the demand for foreign con- 
tinues rather brisk, and the opinion gains ground that 
the lowest point has been passed. The reports of the 
public sides in London are more favorable, and prices 
are considered rather higher than the former sales. 
In other articles no change. 
Money continues very abundant. 
American Stocks, a steady demand, principally on 
account of the continent. 
Lock Jaw. — This hitherto fatal disease in animals 
has recently been cured by a new operation, whereby 
the animal obtains instantaneous relief. The muscles 
which were considered to be extensors are now found 
to be flexors This important discovery was made by 
a person named Webb, of Balsham, Cambridgeshire, 
who has been operating upon a mare belonging to Mr. 
Adcock, of Linton, which is now well, and going to 
work. 
Grtat Loss of Sheep at Van Dieman's Land. — The 
f tal effects of the catarrh in the sheep at Port Philip, 
is stated to have been dreadful in the extreme. One 
gentleman has lost 20,000, and other proprietors from 
10,000 to 15,000 each. 
Cattle Gauge. — This simple little sliding scale 
enables the person using it to ascertain the carcass 
weight of oxen, sheep, and swine, by means of a slide 
fixed in a rule, the gauge point applicable to the case 
being set to the length, then to the girth, gives the car- 
cass weight in stones of 14lbs. avoirdupois. Several 
cases are given in illustration of its correctness. — Eng- 
lish Paper. 
India Wheat. — The Royal Agricultural Society of 
England have received, through Dr. Royle, a supply 
of varieties of wheat from India, with a request that 
a trial may be made of their cultivation in Great 
Britain. 
Lusus datura. — Mr. Attwater, of Bodenham, near 
this city, has a mare which had been some time graz- 
i.;g in the New Forest, and which some five or six 
months ago, gave birth to an animal half deer and half 
horse ! Its head resembles that of deer ; its legs are 
slender, but its hoofs are divided ; the mane is very 
curious, and almost baffles description ; the color is a 
bright fawn ; the hind quarters are like that of a horse, 
but the tail is of the deer tribe. The animal, on the 
whole, is one of great curiosity, and one that chews 
the cud. — Sherbourn Journal. 
The Agricultural Products of France. — The waste 
lands of France, in 1826, were one twelfth part of the 
whole surface, or ten millions of acres. They have 
been reduced to near five millions of acres, by the 
steady improvement in agricultural operations. The 
arable land in that year was equal to fifty-seven 
millions of acres. It has been increased by the re- 
covery of waste lands and by encroachments upon the 
forests to near seventy millions of acres. The products 
of the soil, in the years 1S26 and 1847, as exhibit- 
ed in the following table, show a steady advancement 
in agricultural industry. 
Products. 1826. 1847. 
Wheat, . . . 166,400,000 250,500,000 
Rye, . . . ."101,600,000 162,000,000 
Maslin,. . • . 83,200,000 127,300,000 
Indian Corn, . . . 17,280,000 33,400,000 
Buckwheat, . . 23,200,000 32,200,000 
Oats 88,000,000 155,230,000 
Potatoes, . . . 23,200,000 41,700,000 
Railways and Agriculture. — It can only be by this 
process that agriculture can be improved, and rise to 
the level of the mechanical arts — that coal can be 
made a cheap article on farms, and steam labor be in- 
troduced. The lead once given in this direction, it 
will not be long ere portable railways will be devised 
for farm use, capable of being shifted from field to 
field, and the mixture of soils will then become a 
practical operation at a trifling expense. Railways 
are not in excess. They can scarcely ever be in ex- 
cess. As well say streets are in excess. Cost of rail- 
ways may be in excess, but there has never yet been a 
railway made that will not attract population to its 
borders, when the interests of the railway owners and 
land proprietors shall be one and the same. Inferior 
land bordering on a railway is far more valuable than 
the richest at a distance. Given, the rails, all else 
can be made to follow. — English Paper. 
India Rubber Shoes a Century Ago. — " La Mo- 
narchia Indiana," printed at Madrid, in 1723, we find 
a chapter devoted to " very profitable trees in New 
Spain, from which there distil various liquors and re- 
sins." Among them is described a tree called v.lqua- 
hill, which the natives cut with a hatchet, to obtain 
the white, thick, and adhesive milk. This, when co- 
agulated, they made into balls, called ulli, which re- 
bounded very high when struck to the ground, and 
were used in various games. It was also made into 
shoes and sandals. The author continues : — " Our 
people (.the Spaniards), make use of their ulli to var 
nish their cloaks, made of hempen cloth, for wet 
weather, which are good to resist water, but not 
against the sun, by whose heat and rays the ulli is dis- 
solved." India rubber is not known in Mexico at the 
present day by any other name than that of ulli. And 
the oiled silk covering of hats very generally worn 
throughout the country by travellers is always called 
ulli. 
Good Effects of Guano on Wheat. — A correspon- 
dent in the Agricultural Gazette, states that in the 
spring of ] 848, one sixth of an acre of three different 
descriptions of wheat was dressed with guano, on a 
damp morning, at the rate of two cwt. per acre. At 
harvest they were each carried to separate barns, with 
the produce of a like portion of the fields to which no 
guano had been applied. 
White Rough Chaff. 
Produce per acre, bsh. pk. qt. 
Guano, 21 1 4 
Nothing, 18 1 4 
Increase, . . .300 
And 17 trusses of straw. 
Red Spalding. 
Guano, 24 2 
Nothing, 18 3 2 
Increase, ... 5 
And 17 trusses of straw. 
Essex Red. 
Guano, 36 
Nothing, 32 
Increase, . . .423 
And 15 trusses of straw. 
Agricultural College at Cirencester. — We are glad 
to hear the Royal Agricultural College at Cirencester 
is in a very prosperous condition, and that the power 
of nominating students, which is vested in the share- 
holders, is likely to become a valuable privilege. The 
opportunity which it affords of acquiring sound agri- 
cultural and scientific education, on a farm now get- 
ting into a high state of cultivation, is perhaps supe- 
rior to any other of the kind in this country. — Wor- 
cester Chronicle. 
