1 Exs., 1899.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULLURAL JOURNAL. 149 
regard to utility, by breeding only from selected layers.” The club intend to 
give special prizes at shows for the best system of packing and marketing 
poultry produce ; for table poultry and for eggs; and they are now holding a 
laying competition. ‘The birds are all entrusted into the hands of a manager, 
who, of course, does not compete; have all the same sized house and same 
sized run, and are treated under exactly the same conditions. ‘’he period 
for the competition is sixteen weeks, and they have now been competing—I 
trust with the energy of fighting cocks—for about four weeks. A pen consists 
of four birds only, hatched in this year, and in each house are eight birds, four 
layers of brown eggs and four of white, so that no confusion can arise to whom 
to credit the eggs. The cost of food and management is deducted from the 
money obtained from the eggs, and any balance is returned to the competitor, 
who pays an entrance fee of 10s. Of course, the difficulty in all such compe- 
titions is the danger of fraud creeping in, but the rules seem carefully drawn 
to prevent this, and there is not the smallest reason to doubt that the competi- 
tion will be conducted with absoiute impartiality. The idea is novel, anda 
change from the stereotyped poultry show and its artificial standard of 
excellence. 
EGGS. 
Haas, as all housekeepers know, are sold by the dozen. Has it never struck 
the dealers in eggs, grocers, housewives, and other egg-buyers that this is a 
most absurd method of buying? Of course it is an advantage to the egg- 
producer, for, as eggs are eggs, he or she mixes large and small together and 
obtains the same price, whether they are not much larger than pullets’ eggs or 
are all double-yolked. Supposing potatoes and onions were sold by the dozen 
and irrespective of size, we should find that the purchasers would very soon 
only give half the money for the smaller tubers, or they would not purchase at 
all. As it is, onions and potatoes are paid for according to size, a mixture of 
small and large entailing a loss to the seller. Apples, pears, peaches, oranges, 
&c., are all carefully graded, Why not grade eggs and pay a less price for the 
smaller ones? Or let them be sold by the pound. As it is, a housekeeper by 
taking eges of different sizes suffers considerable loss; indeed, she is the only 
sufferer, for the farmer and storekeeper can always unload. If some such 
plan were adopted whereby the smaller eggs should bring the smaller price, we 
should in a short time find our farmers’ wives getting rid of the layers of small 
eggs and only keeping those which laid the largest. 
DESTRUCTION OF NOXIOUS WEEDS. 
UExpERIMENTS innumerable have been made in the old country with a yiew to 
the complete extermination of charlock in wheat fields, all having more or less 
success. At last, after a careful series of experiments, Dr. W. Somerville has 
found that, by applying a solution of iron or copper sulphate by means of a 
suitable spraying machine at a time when the charlock plants are 1 or 2 inches 
high, the weeds are at once killed. The best results were obtained by a 73 per 
cent. solution of iron sulphate applied at the rate of about 40 gallons per acre, 
the cost being (exclusive of the outlay for a spraying machine) a little over 1s. 
per acre. ‘The reason why charlock is destroyed by the solution while corn 
escapes,’ writes Dr. Somerville, “is this: The latter has a smooth upright 
leaf, on which the liquid {cannot rest, whereas the leaves of charlock are rough 
and broad, and lie more or less horizontally. The consequence is that the 
latter catch and retain the poison, which has thus the opportunity to be 
absorbed and to bring about the death of the plant. The result is the same 
on all rough-leaved plants, and thus itis that such weeds as thistles are also 
blackened and crippled by the spray.” With the object of bringing this 
method to the notice of farmers who have infested. ground, the agricultural 
