1 Deo., 1901.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 583 
Answers to Correspondents. 
SILO STACK—TAHITI LIMES—PIGEON-PEA. 
G. Ines, Woombye— 
Question 1.— What is the smallest stack of ensilage which can be 
successfully made P 
Answer.—aA stack containing 10 tons is small enough. 
Question 2,—Have any Tahiti limes been put on the Brisbane market 
yet? 2 
Answer.—Not in commercial quantities. The price of those brought in 
is not known to us. Young trees may be got from the nurserymen. 
Question 3.—Are there any seeds of the Dal or Pigeon-pea for sale at 
the Agricultural College ? 
Answer.—No. The Dal was not thought a sufficiently valuable forage 
to be perpetuated there. 
CAPONISING. 
Povtrry Farmer, Ipswict.—We have already published. two articles on 
caponising cockerels, together with illustrations of the instruments required. 
These will be found in Vol. VI., pp. 25 and 281. As you may, however, not have 
the Journal of 1900, we give you the following, premising that we do not 
advocate the making of capons asa regular business. Itscarcely pays. At all 
events, if you wish to experiment, we give you the following directions for the 
operation, taken from the London Farmer and Stockbreeder :— 
The “capons” quoted in the London market reports are generally very 
superior cockerels, or entire male birds, as the art of caponing fell into disuse 
about the time when farming became so prosperous as to make men despise 
those small industries which, in these degenerate times, make just the difference 
between a profit or a loss on the year’s business. The farmer who kept a decent 
hunter and rode to hounds was not disposed to take much trouble about poultry, 
and left that sort of thing to the women folks, who drew on him for poultry 
food, and deemed the money obtamed by sales of eggs and table fowls as their 
special perquisites, or, at least, as coming under their unquestioned control. 
The operation, as formerly practised, was simply barbarous, and the death-roll 
very heavy. The Chinese practised the emasculation of cocks long before our 
countrymen practised their Druidical rites in forest glades or “under the old 
oak tree, by the light of the fairies’ glance” ; indeed, the operation as performed 
by Celestials is so old that history telleth not. Shakespeare’s J.P., it will be 
remembered, is described as having a “ fair round belly, with good capon lined.” 
The method of operation in China, and in this country, was‘ to cut open the 
abdomen, and with the finger, or finger and thumb, grope among the viscera 
until the essential organs of reproduction were discovered, remove them by 
force, and sew up the wound. Many died of rupture of the great abdominal 
vein at the time, and others wasted with peritonitis subsequently. Notwith- 
standing the great mortality, capons were made by certain women residing in 
the neighbourhood of Dorking until quite lately. 
It was an American farmer (Mr. Miles) who introduced a better method— 
the same gentleman who taught our “vets.” how to operate upon rig horses. 
By his practically antiseptic plan the birds suffer but very little pain, are not 
In 
