94 
JOURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER. 
J  ly  26,  1900. 
retailer  is  tempted  by  the  prospect  of  a  bijrger  profit  to  invest  in  the 
preserved  material  rather  than  the  fresh,”  That  preservatives  are 
unnecessary  is  shown  hy  the  fact  that  no  large  Irish  curer  uses  them  at 
all,  and  Messrs.  Crosse  &  Blackwell  do  not  use  them  in  their 
manufactory. 
The  extensive  use  of  salicylic  and  horacic  acids  is  proved  hy  a 
Lancashire  analyst,  who  found  the  former  in  fifteen  out  of  twenty 
samples  of  jam.  He  also  found  from  17  to  38  grains  of  horacic  acid  in 
cream,  62  grai  s  per  pound  of  hutter,  and  24  grains  per  pound  of  ham. 
'J'he  same  gentleman  found  that  salicylic  acid  is  used  to  an  astonishing 
amount  in  lemonides  and  other  temperance  drinks  ;  in  lime  juice 
cordial  as  much  as  100  grains  per  gallon,  and  in  British  wines 
140  grains  per  gallon.  Considering  the  enormous  amount  of  lemonade 
consumed  nowadays  hy  children,  not  only  on  treat  days,  hut  every 
day,  how  largely  town  children  are  fed  on  imported  hutter  and 
margarine,  and  on  bought  jam,  it  is  not  difficult  to  see  the  serious 
side  of  this  matter,  and  how  urgently  necessary  it  was  that  the  whole 
question  of  adulterations  should  be  rigidly  inquired  into.  This 
inquiry  is  now  taking  place,  but  will  agriculture  make  its  voice  heard, 
and  see  that  such  an  inquiry  produces  its  proper  fruit  ?  As  Mr. 
Milnes  Gaskell  said  the  other  day  in  addressing  the  West  Riding 
Chamber  of  Agriculture,  “Any  little  knot  of  fools,  representing 
nothing  and  knowing  nothing,  could  put  pressure  cn  a  parliamentary 
candidate  aud  get  him  to  accept  their  views.  Who  ever  heard  of  a 
combination  of  landlords  and  farmers  for  such  an  object  ?  ” 
Tlie  Agricultural  Holdings  Bill. 
The  House  of  Commons  is  still  considering  this  Bill  as  amended, 
and  further  amendments  are  rnly  proposed  to  be  negatived.  We 
notice  that  the  Central  Chamber  of  Agriculture  has  adopted  a 
resolution  recommending  Parliament  to  make  it  compulsory  for  an 
arbitrator  in  giving  his  award  for  compensation  under  this  Bill  to 
give  full  particulars  of  the  said  award.  We  entirely  sympathise 
with  this  proposal.  Mr.  Lipscomb  said  that  the  only  objection 
came  from  the  valuers  themselves,  and  this  is  most  probably 
absolutely  true,  for  valuers  have  in  the  past  been  a  very  close 
corporation,  have  been  well  combined,  and  resisted  all  attempts  at 
reform  of  their  very  arbitrary  modes  of  procedure;  but  we  know 
that  farmers  have  frequently  complained  of,  and  looked  upon  as  a 
grievance,  tie  want  of  particulars  in  tenant  right  awards,  the  latter 
being  like  doctors’  bills,  except  m  the  largeness  of  their  amounts, 
A  valuer  of  our  acquaintance  some  fifteen  or  twenty  years  ago 
commenced  to  give  full  particulars  in  his  awards,  and  he  throve 
amazingly,  soon  building  a  large  and  very  far-reaching  business. 
The  day  is  gone  by  when  valuers  could  roughly  reckon  up  each  his 
separate  idea  of  the  amount  due  and  then  split  the  difference,  or,  to 
quote  one  instance  we  have  beard  of  where  £200  was  the  difference 
between  them,  toss  for  choice.  At  any  rate,  in  such  an  important 
matter  as  an  arbitrator’s  award  under  a  Bill  like  this,  it  cannot  be 
unreasonable  to  ask  the  arbitrator,  who  should  be  a  master  of  his  craft, 
to  give  full  and  sufficient  reasons  for  the  final  decision  w^hich  it  is 
his  duty  to  award. 
Work  on  He  Home  Farm. 
A  splendid  week,  broken  only  by  one  heavy  shower,  has  enabled 
farmers  to  clear  up  the  hay  that  was  still  out,  and  the  crop  is  now, 
practically  speaking,  all  in.  It  is  well  got,  too,  and  will  be  of  great 
value. 
The  shower  above  mentioned  has  given  the  Turnips  a  great  push. 
The  hay  harvest  drew  away  the  men  from  hoeing  when  the  Turnips 
were  just  right  for  striking,  and  now  they  are  rather  big  and  the 
singling  process  is  much  more  difficult.  As  the  men  do  the  work  by 
the  acre,  the  extra  labour  will  fall  on  them,  the  price  remaining  the 
same.  They  will,  however,  make  some  very  long  days  in  order  to  pick 
up  the  ground  lost,  and  this  will  exactly  suit  the  farmers,  who  are  only 
too  anxious  to  see  the  work  done  expeditiously. 
There  is  a  lot  of  work  to  do  before  the  corn  harvest,  which  is 
coming  on  rapidly.  Barleys  are  assuming  a  decidedly  yellow  cast,  and 
Wheat  ears  begin  to  feel  as  if  there  was  something  in  them.  In  another 
week  we  shall  be  able  to  count  the  grains  and  give  some  kind  of 
:forecast  as  to  the  probable  yield. 
The  great  heat,  much  above  80°  shade  temperature,  has  taken  the 
gilt  off  the  lighter  Barleys,  and  some  fields  which  had  shown  great 
improvement  from  the  June  rains  and  cool  conditions  are  again  looking 
both  short  and  thin.  The  improvement  was  evidently  only  one  to  be 
seen  from  a  distance. 
Thousand-heads  are  looking  very  well  and  nearly  cover  the  land ; 
they  will  be  ready  for  use  early,  and  will  be  wanted,  for  Clover  fogs 
are  only  thin,  and  cannot  be  good,  and  though  lambs  are  looking  healthy 
at  present,  we  hear  a  little  ominous  coughing  towards  nightfall.  A 
good  dipping  will  do  them  good,  and  they  may  be  taken  from  the  ewes 
at  once.  Shepherds  are  kept  busy  with  the  fly,  which  is  now  very 
troublesome ;  the  great  heat  hatches  the  grubs  and  forces  them  so 
quickly  that  a  lamb  may  be  in  a  serious  state  in  a  few  hours.  Fine 
tobacco  powder  dredged  on  the  place  from  a  pepper-box  is  the  best 
thing  to  prevent  a  second  attack. 
Feeding  cattle  on  grass  are  thriving  well,  but  butchers  complain 
that  they  weigh  badly  when  killed ;  they  are,  perhaps,  still  suffering 
from  the  loss  of  last  year’s  Turnip  crop.  Pigs  having  gone  through  a 
period  of  scarcity,  are  now  so  plentiful  that  nice  young  ones  eight 
weeks  old  may  be  bought  for  as  many  shillings,  and  useful  stores  are 
only  worth  30s.  A  good  chance  is  offered  to  buy  young  ones  for 
breeding  purposes  later  on;  the  trade  will  have  recovered  in  about 
eighteen  months. 
- «  t - 
Destruction  of  Docusts. — A  Consular  report  on  the  Argentine 
Republic,  which  was  issued  on  Monday,  tells  of  the  enormous  and 
systematic  destruction  of  locusts  in  that  country.  No  less  than 
12,000  tons  of  locusts  were  destroyed  last  year  under  the  auspices  of  a 
commission  appointed  for  the  purpose.  As  a  result  of  this  campaign 
against  the  enemy  the  Wheat  and  Maize  crops  were  exceptionally  large. 
Harvest  Difficulties. — The  gathering  of  the  harvest  this  year  is 
likely  to  tax  the  ingenuity  of  the  farmer.  The  scarcity  of  agricultural 
labour  is  intensified  by  the  absence  on  foreign  service  of  the  Army 
Reserve.  Our  villages  have  been  drained  of  ablebodied  men,  so  much 
so  that  in  some  villages  in  the  lower  portions  of  Essex  and  Suffolk  it 
has  been  found  that  60  per  cent,  of  the  adult  population  remaining  are 
upwards  of  sixty  years  of  age.  The  scarcity  of  labour  during  the  last 
few  seasons  has  been  overcome  by  the  increasing  use  of  machinery,  but 
the  practical  man  is  aware  that  only  when  the  surface  of  the  soil  is 
hard  and  dry  will  this  harvester  work  satisfactorily. 
A  Preventive  of  Turnip  “  Ply.” — Mr.  G.  H.  Carpenter,  B.Sc., 
F.E.S.,  consulting  entomologist  to  the  Royal  Dublin  Society,  in  a 
communication  which  has  been  incorporated  in  the  report  of  the 
council  just  issued,  refers  in  the  following  terms  to  the  prevention  of 
Turnip  “fly”: — “Mr.  C.  Sniyth  of  Ballymote,  county  Sligo,  has 
discovered  that  dressing  the  young  Turnip  plants  with  a  weak 
solution  of  sulphate  of  copper  and  lime  is  a  most  effective  preventive 
of  the  attacks  of  the  fly,  while  it  does  not  in  the  least  interfere  with 
the  growth  of  the  plants.  When  the  sulphate  of  copper  was  first 
talked  of  as  a  destroyer  of  Charlock,  it  was  generally  conceded  that 
the  dressing  could  not  be  availed  of  in  the  case  of  fields  sown  with 
a  Turnip  crop,  on  account  of  the  Turnip  being  a  member  of  the 
same  family  as  the  Charlock,  and  as  such  likely  to  suffer  from  the 
dressing  in  the  same  way.  The  experiments  conducted  by  Mr.  Smyth, 
however,  go  to  show  that  if  a  weak  dressing  is  employed,  say  about 
1  per  cent,  solution,  no  injury  to  the  plants  need  be  apprehended, 
and  the  absolute  immunity  of  the  plants  from  fly  attacks  may  be 
confidently  counted  on.  Should  it  work  out  as  Mr.  Smyth  seems  to 
have  found  it  to  do,  the  dressing  will  prove  a  priceless  boon  to  Turnip 
growers  in  all  parts  of  the  kingdom.” 
Association  of  Prltlsh  and  Irish  IVIllIers. — The  twenty-second 
annual  conference  of  the  National  Association  of  British  aud  Irish 
Millers  opened  at  the  Grand  Hotel,  Scarborough  recently,  when  about 
160  members  were  present,  including  Mr.  Sydney  Leetham,  York, 
president,  Mr.  Arthur  Baker,  Bristol,  retiring  president,  and  the 
secretary,  Mr.  H.  J.  Sanderson,  London.  Mr.  Leetham,  in  the  course  of 
his  presidential  address,  strongly  urged  upon  members  the  necessity  of 
united  action  to  protect  the  interests  of  British  millers  against 
American  competition.  British  millers  were  too  conservative  and  old- 
fashioned.  They  spent  their  strength  fighting  amongst  themselves, 
bewailing  the  pressure  of  foreign  competition,  which  was  as  nothing 
compared  with  the  fratricidal  and  unnecessary  competition  indulged  in 
at  home.  It  was  no  secret  that  the  year  ending  December,  1899,  was 
not  a  satisfactory  one.  The  reason  for  that  had  been  the  stagnant 
condition  of  the  Wheat  market,  resulting  in  the  price  of  flour  being  cut 
down  to  the  lowest  possible  margin.  Did  the  consumer  trouble  about 
the  last  sixpence  per  sack,  and  was  he  to  blame  for  trade  being  pulled 
down  time  after  time  ?  He  fearlessly  asserted  that  the  entire  blame 
rested  with  themselves.  It  was  surely  worth  their  while  to  formulate 
a  scheme,  whereby  a  community  of  interest  without  curtailment  of 
individual  effort  could  be  devised.  The  president’s  address  was 
followed  by  a  discussion  on  the  question  of  dirt  and  foreign  matter 
in  Wheat,  and  on  the  motion  of  Mr.  Baker,  Bristol,  it  was  resolved  that 
this  Association  continue  to  agitate  for  the  adoption  of  the  principle  of 
analysis  as  applied  to  contracts  for  Wheat  sold  on  sample.  The  members 
were  afterwards  entertained  to  luncheon  by  the  mayor  and  the  member 
for  Scarborough. —  (“North  British  Agriculturist.”) 
