24 
JOURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER. 
July  5,  1900. 
ram  and  ewe  sales.  They  must  continually  have  fresh  blood  from  the 
“  old  country  ”  or  the  wool  deteriorates  quickly. 
It  is  wonderful  the  change  the  last  few  years  have  made  in  the 
wool  imports.  At  one  time  it  was  a  case  of  all  merino,  but  with  the 
merino  wool  came  inferior  muttm,  so  our  friends  in  New  Zealand 
and  the  River  Plate  turned  their  attention  to  converting  their  merino 
into  cross-bred,  and  the  percentage  of  cross-bred  wool  we  get  from  ' 
those  counties  is  45’6  per  cent,  as  against  17‘2  per  cent,  in  1889,  and 
the  percentage  of  merino  is  still  on  the  down  grade.  All  this  affects, 
and  affects  greatly,  our  home  trade,  and  there  does  not  seem  at  present 
any  prospect  of  a  material  rise.  Bradford,  which  sends  the  big  buyers 
out,  sends  them  out  singly,  and  they  are  not  prepared  to  tempt  us 
by  price. 
There  was  a  “  boom”  in  the  merino  early  in  the  spring,  and  we 
were  struck  by  the  way  in  which  the  retail  dealers  took  advantage  of 
it.  It  seemed  a  preposterous  thing  that  ordinary  knitting  wool  should, 
on  account  of  the  slight  rise,  go  up  halfpenny  per  ounce,  and  that  fine 
mending  varieties  should  go  up  halfpenny  per  half  ounce.  We  saw 
no  reason  in  a  25  per  cent,  lift,  but  for  these  two  commodities  we  are 
perfectly  at  the  mercy  of  the  shopkeepers.  It  would  be  rather  a 
delicate  question  to  ask  who  is  getting  the  profit.  We  can  never 
believe  there  was  a  real  need  for  such  an  advance.  The  ladies  a'^e  not 
likely  to  strike,  and  they  are  the  principal  folk  concerned.  Fair  or  free 
trade  may  be  a  jewel,  and  we  are  not  the  people  to  wish  to  stand  in 
the  way  where  warm  and  cheap  clothing  is  concerned,  but  we  still 
think  it  rather  hard  that  the  letting  in  of  all  this  col  jnial  wool  to 
flood  our  markets  should  not  have  free  access  to  the  American 
markets.  Our  wool  is  welcome  there  for  its  sound  characteristics, 
but,  alas!  the  he  ivy  tariff  badly  handicaps  us.  This  seems  hardly 
fair,  but  it  is  one  of  the  things  we  have  to  “  grin  and  bide.” 
We  grow  so  many  varieties  here,  and  we  also  grow  the  heaviest 
fleeces  in  the  world,  but  our  climate  and  soil  cannot  produce  that 
peculiar  quality  of  staple  now  in  demand  by  manufacturers.  We 
cannot,  poor  as  trade  is,  advise  our  farmers  to  hold.  It  is  not  a  avise 
thing,  speculation  in  wool  ;  like  many  other  forms  of  speculation,  it 
so  often  fails  to  “come  off,”  and  there  is  always  more  or  less  risk. 
Moth  and  rust  may  corrupt,  damp  is  a  great  danger,  rats  are  greater, 
and  fire  the  greatest.  We  had  a  striking  instance  of  that  last  year, 
when  a  friend’s  accumulated  clip  of  five  years  was  consumed  in  a 
few  hours. 
There  has  been  one  pleasant  thing  about  sheep  this  year.  Mutton 
has  touched  a  higher  point  than  it  has  done  for  some  time  ;  but  that 
has  not  been  all  profit,  as  owing  to  the  almost  entire  failure  of  the 
Turnip  crop  much  and  exj  ensive  hand  fo  d  has  had  to  be  found  from 
somewhere.  It  would  be  pleasant  to  hear  of  the  old  quotations  again^ 
and  a  boom  just  now  in  the  wool  trade  would  be  a  wonderful  help  to 
us  all.  We  want  something  to  assist  to  pay  the  advance  in  the  wage 
of  the  agricultural  labourer;  we  do  not  grudge  him  his  advance,  but 
we  should  be  happier  if  we  knew  where  we  were  to  find  it. 
Work  oij  the  Home  Farm, 
Five  days  ago  we  saw  the  Turnip  drill  at  work,  and  now  where  we 
sib  can  see  the  green  lines  of  young:  plants ;  this  is  almost  as  quick  as  is 
possible  out  of  doors,  and  with  such  a  sj  lendid  start  there  can  be  no 
doubt  about  the  result. 
The  warmth  and  showers  of  the  past  week  have  done  wonders  for 
all  crops.  Wheats  and  Barleys  are  lengthening  in  the  straw,  and  will 
now  be  full  average  crops,  if  not  over.  Oats  are  still  rather  short,  but 
the  showers  are  giving  them  every  chance  to  improve.  Clover  and  hay 
are  too  near  maturity  to  benefit  so  much. 
There  is  high  pressure  on  every  farm  ;  a  neighbour  having  put  off 
Wheat  threshing  for  lack  of  time  and  mSn  has  j  ust  delivered  250  quarters 
at  263.  9d.,  sold  three  weeks  ago.  Present  price  31s.  6d. ;  loss  43.  9cl. 
per  quarter.  He  has  some  more  and  would  like  to  thresh,  but  there  is 
too  much  other  work  on  hand.  A  52-acre  field  of  Potatoes  planted  late 
requires  much  weeding.  Mangolds  are  not  yet  done  with  and  Swedes 
are  ready  to  hoe — i.e.,  no  time  now  for  threshing.  He  was  fortunate 
enough  to  have  very  good  Turnips  in  this  52-acre  plot,  and  was  enabled 
to  keep  his  sheep  until  they  reached  the  top  price,  but  was  thrown  late 
in  getting  his  Potatoes  in,  and  now  is  suffering  in  another  way.  The 
Potatoes  look  fairly  well  where  the  Turnips  were  moderate  and  the 
sheep  were  not  on  the  ground  long,  but  where  the  land  was  well  trodden 
they  look  badly,  showing  that  texture  has  often  a  greater  influence  in 
the  early  stages  of  a  crop  than  has  manure. 
The  proper  completion  of  summer  work  with  the  present  force 
before  harvest  seems  an  impossibility,  and  a  few  good  Irish  labourers 
would  be  welcomed  throughout  the  arable  districts.  They  have  been  so 
much  discarded  of  late  in  favour  of  string  binders  that  they  will  require 
some  special  inducement  to  come  over,  bub  we  see  there  is  an  organ¬ 
isation  in  Dublin  for  supplying  Irish  labour  to  English  farms,  and  if 
they  could  be  found  in  regular  work  from  now  until  mid-September  at 
Turnip  hoeing  and  harvest,  they  could  earn  5s.  per  day  at  picking 
Potatoes  in  Lincolnshire  and  South  Yorkshire  for  a  month  after  that. 
Yearling  seeds  are  still  poor  herbage,  but  many  two-year-old  pieces 
are  very  full  of  meat  and  white  with  Clover  flowers.  Grass  pastures, 
too,  are  satisfactory,  so  for  the  first  time  since  October  plenty  prevails 
amongst  flocks  and  herds. 
The  local  foal  shows  are  about  to  commence.  Foals  have  done  well, 
and  there  is  more  than  the  usual  percentage  of  promising  ones. 
Wonderful,  indeed,  has  been  the  improvement  in  farm  horses  since  the 
Shire  Horse  Society  was  inaugurated  in  1879. 
, - 1  ^  I  I  . .  .  - 
Sugar  Beet. — At  a  recent  meeting  of  the  Sugar  Beet  Committee 
of  the  Central  Chamber  of  Agriculture,  Colonel  Victor  Milward,  M.P., 
in  the  chair,  it  was  decided  to  make  arrangements  for  a  series  of  not 
less  than  twentv  experiments  in  the  growth  of  Sugar  Beet  in  different 
parts  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  during  the  forthcoming  season,  each 
experimental  plot  to  be  at  least  1  acre  in  extent.  It  is  proposed  that 
of  the  twenty  experiments  about  twelve  should  be  located  in  England, 
four  in  Scotland,  and  four  in  Ireland.  As  in  certain  cases  previous 
experiments  have  demonstrated  the  value  of  Sugar  Beet  for  the  feeding 
of  stock  independeutly  of  the  value  of  the  root  for  the  manufacture  of 
sugar,  this  point  will  be  specially  kept  in  view  in  the  proposed  experi¬ 
ments  of  the  present  year. — (“North  British  Agriculturist.”) 
Women  Farmers, — It  is  said  that  out  of  the  17,000  farmers  in 
Kansas,  5000  are  women,  and  mostly  American  women,  too,  witl^nearly 
the  same  proportion  in  Oklahoma.  It  is  with  them  as  with  the  men, 
some  of  them  work  almost  daily  in  the  field,  and  others  depend  more 
upon  hired  helpers  whom  they  oversee  and  direct.  The  great  interest 
in  farming  taken  by  the  young  women  in  some  of  the  younger  States 
is  manifested  by  their  presence  at  dairy  schools,  meetings  of  dairy, 
horticultural  and  poultry  associations,  and  even  stock-breeding  asso¬ 
ciations,  and  some  of  them  are  among  the  most  successful  farmers, 
either  in  mixed  farming  or  specialties,  that  can  be  found.  They  are 
not  restricted  to  old  methods  of  past  'generations,  but  are  ready  to 
accept  modern  improvements  and  modern  ideas,  while  they  have  a 
habit  of  thoroughness  in  what  they  undertake  that  is  lacking  in  many 
men. — (“  American  Agriculturist.”) 
Essex  Farmers  In  Denmark. — We  are  informed  that  the  tour 
arranged  by  the  Essex  Technical  Instruction  Committee  for  Essex 
dairy  farmers  to  visit  Denmark,  in  order  to  examine  the  organisation 
and  practice  of  the  agricultural  industries  of  that  country,  has  been  a 
complete  success.  The  party  consisted  of  thirty,  and  included 
practical  farmers  from  Essex  and  some  of  the  county  staff  from  the 
Technical  Laboratories  at  Chelmsford.  The  first  visit  the  party  made 
on  their  arrival  in  Denmark  was  to  the  Danish  Co-operative  Butter 
Factory  at  Esbjerg,  and  the  full  programme  included  visits  to  the 
Agricultural  School  at  Lajebund,  the  People’s  High  School  at  Askev, 
the  Experimental  Windmill  and  Field  Experiment  Station,  the 
Margarine  Factory  at  Veler,  the  Co-operative  Dairy  at  Odense,  the 
Milk-freezing  establishment  at  Marsley,  the  Agricultural  School  at 
Dalum,  the  Co-operative  Bacon  Factory  at  Odense,  the  estate  of  Count 
Moltke  Bregentved,  and  the  Agricultural  College  of  Copenhagen.  The 
information  obtained  was  of  a  practical  and  useful  character,  and  the 
visit  proved  a  great  success  from  an  educational  point  of  view.  Mr. 
W.  W.  Green,  as  member  of  the  Essex  County  Council,  acted  as 
chairman  of  the  party. 
more  Experiments. — Records  of  experiments  published  in  the 
first  half  of  the  year,  relating  to  the  preceding  season,  have  become 
almost  too  numerous  for  individual  notice.  We  have  received  one  report 
by  Professor  Winter  of  the  Agricultural  Department  of  Bangor 
University  College,  relating  to  experiments  on  Swedes,  pasture. 
Charlock,  and  live  stock.  Experiments  on  Swedes  last  season  were  to 
a  great  extent  spoilt  by  the  drought  and  the  “  fir,”  and  the  differences 
in  the  results  in  North  Wales  were  small.  A  useful  trial,  still  in 
progress,  is  directed  to  the  determination  of  the  most  profitable 
quantity  of  basic  slag  to  apply  to  grass  land  in  the  district.  The 
results,  so  far,  are  in  favour  -of  5  cwt.  per  acre.  High-grade  slag  had 
no  more  effect  than  low-grade — a  curious  result.  A  second  report  is 
from  Professor  Campbell  of  the  Yorkshire  College,  showing,  with  other 
results,  the  importance  of  potash  for  Swedes  in  the  district  of  the 
trials,  when  no  farmyard  manure  is  applied.  No  gain  in  yield  was 
obtained  when  2  cwt.  sulphate  of  potash  were  added  to  farmyard 
manure  and  artificials.  Indeed,  there  was  a  decrease.  But  the  same 
addition  to  artificials  without  farmyard  manure  gave  au  increase  of 
30  cwt.  per  acre.  —  (“  Agricultural  Gazette.”) 
