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406 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 May, 1899. 
fodder planta careful trial after its earliest experimental farm tests. It isnow 
four years ago, Mr. Williams states, since he sowed the first seed, but his farm 
is now practically covered with the Paspalum, and, to use his own words, “ the 
more I see of it the better I like it. Of course, I mix other grasses and clovers 
as a change for the stock, but the Paspalum as a basis of the pasture has 
proved itself a mainstay for the stock, because it grows vigorously when hot 
weather withers up the other grasses. 1 have carefully observed it in all its 
stages and variations, and have come to the conclusion that Paspalum dilatatum 
is the very best grass for the farmer to rely upon as a permanent pasture, 
because after four years’ grazing the paddocks are still improving and giving 
an increased quantity of feed. . . . A feature in favour of this grass is 
that it is not difficult to eradicate when a paddock is required for cultivation. 
One ploughing will not do this, but such cultivation as will bring the plant to 
the surface, followed by rolling and harrowing to free the roots from the soil, 
is found to quickly bring about its eradication by exposure to the sun. The 
plants are very tenacious of life if any soil is left on the roots, especially in 
wet weather, but as they do not grow from pieces of root, like couch and some 
other grass, plenty ofcultivation and stirring during a few fine days is found to 
prevent further growth. Another point is that when the plants are far apart 
the grass grows into big tussocks, but as soon as the spaces between are all 
filled up it forms as regular a pasture as any of the other grasses.” 
EXPORT OF DANISH BUTTER. 
Tue quantity of butter exported from Denmark to Great Britain in 1885 was 
42,289,632 lb. The quantity exported in 1897 was 149,489,312 lb.—Hngineer. 
EXPORT OF MUTTON FROM ARGENTINA. 
Tr is estimated that at the present time the Argentine Republic is raising 
annually nearly 700,000 tons more mutton than its own population can consume ; 
200,000 sheep are exported every month.— Engineer. 
MEAT-PRESERVING IN BUENOS AYRES. 
Tue largest frozen meat factory in the world is at Barracas, a suburb of 
Buenos Ayres, and belongs to the Sansinena family. The establishment is 
capable of an output of 3,500 sheep per diem, or 100,000 mutton carcasses per 
month. The freezing-rooms have a capacity of nearly 100,000 cubie feet, and 
have hanging room for 6,000 sheep. The storerooms in which the sheep are 
stowed after freezing to await shipment have a capacity of 150,00 cubic feet, 
and can contain upwards of 50,600 sheep.— Engineer. 
WIRE-WORM. 
Iw the case of heavy land pastures, which are said to leave a legacy of wire- 
worm on being re-broken, there is strong probability that the eake-feeding of 
stock, or the growth of heavy grass and hay crops, by the application of 
chemical fertilisers, would cause the land to be infested with much fewer pests, 
either animal or vegetable, than in cases of the soil not being kept up to a 
maximum state of fertility. And there may be another source of wire-worm 
engenderment, both on heavy and light lands—that of the want of deep-rooted 
grasses and clovers, and those being most general in the sward, which, like the 
rye grasses, send out their fibrous roots very near the surface. I believe it is 
a fact that a very large proportion of the farms that suffer most from wire- 
worm ravages are those where rye grass iscommonly grown. Italian rye grass 
especially, if not lavishly fed with nitrogen, has been found to harbour and 
propagate the pest to an enormous extent, but, even when the roots of grasses 
of any kind are worse infested with the germs of wire-worm, burying the sward 
deeply under by the chilled digging plough before winter, and only submitting 
the land to surface working the following spring fora mangel erop, would most 
likely prove destructive to the vermin.— Agricultural Gazette. 
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