418 
JOURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER. 
October  30,  1902. 
Another  system  is  to  throw  the  pulled  Mangold  into 
small  heaps,  and  then  cover  the  heaps  with  Mangold  leaves 
until  it  is  found  convenient  to  cart  them  to  the  pie.  -this 
is  more  expensive  if  labour  for  the  pulling  and  heaping  does 
not  include  the  filling  of  the  carts  as  in  the  before-mentioned 
system.  The  men  would  prefer  to  fill  the  carts  rather  than 
heap  them  at  the  same  price.  Straw  is  plentiful  this  year, 
so  there  is  no  reason  to  grudge  a  good  covering  to  the  Man¬ 
golds.  They  are  as  susceptible  to  frost  and  injury  as 
Potatoes,  but  not  so  liable  to  damage  from  wet,  so  a  good 
thick  and  dry  covering  is  more  material  than  thatch  as  a 
protection.  ,  ,  .  .  ,,  .,  . 
As  the  season  has  been  cold  and  damp,  and  the  soil  is 
now  of  a  decidedly  sodden  character,  it  is  from  every  point 
of  view  desirable  to  waste  no  time  in  storing  our  Mangolds. 
The  crop  is  not  heavy,  and  it  might  greatly  increase  during 
the  next  month  if  frost  kept  off  ;  but  a  severe  frost  might  be 
so  fatally  injurious  to  the  finest  crop  as  to  make  us  very 
wary  of  running  risks  of  that  kind. 
Maniirial  Waste. 
Farmers,  and  even  the  best  of  them,  are  often  slow  to 
take  advantage  of  opportunities  which  come  in  their  way. 
For  instance,  we  know  of  a  nuisance  in  a  neighbouring  parish, 
and  a  dreadful  nuisance  it  is— an  open  drain  beside  a  high¬ 
way,  the  said  drain  reeking  with  sewage,  and  without  fall  to 
clear  itself.  This  is  in  the  area  of  a  small  urban  district,  and 
the  farmer  on  whose  frontage  the  drain  is  does  not  like  the 
expense  of  cleansing  it,  which  the  Urban  Council  forces  upon 
him  because  the  ditch  is  upon  his  land.  He  keeps  on  clean¬ 
ing  out  the  ditch  very  unwillingly,  and  leaves  the  material 
removed  to  be  carted  away  by  the  first  comer.  We  will  not 
enter  into  the  question  of  responsibility  for  cleansing  such  a 
drain  ;  but  surely  no  sanitary  authority  has  a  right  to  use  a 
wayside  ditch  as  a  settling  tank  and  saddle  the  occupier  of 
the  adjoining  field  with  the  responsibility  for  keeping  it 
cleaned  out.  But  we  are  concerned  as  to  the  ineptitude  of  a 
tenant  to  take  advantage  of  opportunity  afforded  him. 
A  tenant  in  the  position  we  have  sketched  might  have  the 
manurial  value  of  the  sewage  of  the  parish  at  his  disposal, 
and  be  paid  for  disposing  of  it ;  and  if  we  brand  such  a  man 
with  the  badge  of  thriftlessness,  what  must  we  say  of  those 
thousands  of  farmers  who  allow  the  liquid  manure  from  their 
yards  to  pass  down  the  parish  drains  and  aid  in  the  con¬ 
tamination  of  our  watercourses  and  rivers? 
The  urine  of  the  horse  is  far  more  valuable  than  its  dung, 
but  we  take  great,  and  we  might  say  misapplied,  care  of  the 
latter,  whilst  the  former  is  swilled  out  as  a  nuisance  rather 
than  as  a  valuable  asset.  The  true  value  of  peat  moss  dust 
in  preventing  waste  of  this  description  has  yet  to  be  demon¬ 
strated.  If  this  material  were  used  generally  in  the  gutters 
of  cow-houses  and  stables  it  would  absorb  the  urine  and 
with  it  the  large  proportion  of  ammonia  which  it  contains, 
and  this,  instead  of  being  wasted,  or  practically  so,  could 
be  applied  by  the  medium  of  the  peat  moss  dust  to  the  land, 
which  every  day  becomes  in  greater  need  of  it. 
Our  rivers  are  polluted  every  day  with  matter  which 
would  be  invaluable  to  the  land.  We  import  immense 
quantities  of  Wheat,  flour,  and  feeding  stuffs  from  abroad. 
If  the  net  manurial  value  of  these  articles  were  not  wasted 
the  land  of  Great  Britain  should  be  growing  more  fertile 
every  day  ;  but  the  agricultural  returns  and  the  “  Times  ” 
reports  do  not  say  so.  On  the  contrary,  they  show  that  large 
quantities  of  artificial  manures  are  purchased  to  make  up 
deficiencies  by  waste  of  natural  manure.  It  is  ammonia  we 
lose,  and  if  we  paid  more  attention  to  the  saving  of  the 
ammonia  contained  in  the  urine  of  our  horses  and  other  stock 
we  should  have  less  need  to  spend  money  in  the  purchase  of 
sulphate  of  ammonia  and  nitrate  of  soda. 
Work  on  the  Home  Farm. 
As  is  often  the  case  after  wet  and  late  harvests,  there  are 
frequent  cases  of  dispute  as  to  the  proper  delivery  and  dressing 
of  Wheat  and  Barley,  and  as  long  as  farmers  will  persist  in  weigh- 
ing  up  their  corn  from  the  machine  tail  such  disputes  will 
prevail.  As  the  land  varies  so  does  the  sample,  and  to  get  a 
satisfactory  sample  to  sell  by,  portions  from  the  different  parts 
of  the  field  must  be  well  mixed  and  dressed,  and  a  sample  taken 
from  the  mixture.  Then  if  the  whole  bulk  is  well  turned  over, 
mixed,  and  then  dressed,  the  sample  should  be  representative  of 
the  bulk,  and  no  occasion  for  a  dispute  can  occur.  It  is  wise 
policy  for  a  farmer  to  keep  a  sealed  duplicate  of  each  sample  he 
offers.  A  factor  may  buy  a  sample  slightly  out  of  condition,  and 
if  he  does  not  sell  it  for  a  week  or  ten  days  it  may  very  easily, 
by  constant  showing  and  handling,  become  fairly  dry  before  a 
re-sale  takes  place.  His  customer  buys  what  he  considers  a  dry 
sample,  and  naturally  objects  to  have  the  bulk  delivered  to  him 
out  of  condition,  and  the  fault  is  saddled  upon  the  grower,  who 
generally  has  to  submit  to  a  reduction  of  the  agreed  price.  This 
is  one  more  of  the  penalties  for  being  made  use  of  by  the 
middleman.  If  farmers  were  determined  always  to  sell  direct 
to  millers  or  maltsters  they  would  always  be  able  to  deliver  their 
stuff  immediately,  and  cases  like  the  above  would  not  occur. 
We  got  the  cultivator  through  the  Wheat  stubbles,  but 
pressure  of  other  work  lias  prevented  anything  like  clearing, 
even  had  the  weather  been  favourable,  and  with  Mangold  storing 
to  do  and  some  Potatoes  to  sort  for  market  we  shall  hardly  get 
our  fallows  dressed  now;  fortunately  they  are  particularly  clean, 
and  will  not  suffer  from  the  neglect.  We  shall  not  be  able  to 
plough  them  down  much  before  December. 
No  Wheat  drilled  yet!  It  has  been  too  wet  to  drill  the  Clover 
ley,  and  the  Potato  land  is  not  ploughed  yet.  Many  Potatoes 
still  remain  in  the  ground,  which  is  becoming  very  soft  and 
muddy,  and  very  disagreeable  to  work  amongst.  There  is  a 
rather  healthy  demand  for  good  users  at  55s.  to  60s.  per  ton, 
and  the  smaller  growers  are  selling  and  delivering  as  they  lift 
them.  This  makes  the  labour  difficulties  worse,  and  threshing 
is  frequently  prevented  by  lack  of  hands. 
There  has  been  a  strike  of  Irish  Potato  pickers.  We  mentioned 
a  month  ago  the  excellent  effect  spraying  had  on  a  field  belong¬ 
ing  to  a  neighbour.  This  field  caused  the  strike,  the  crop  being 
so  great  that  the  men  could  only  earn  half  the  wages  earned  by 
men  working  on  other  farms.  The  strike  is  settled  by  the  promise 
of  a  bonus,  but  the  men  are  not  quite  satisfied  yet. 
Irrigation  in  Australia. 
The  work  of  extending  irrigation  in  the  highland  regions  of 
inner  New  South  Wales  and  Queensland  is  going  steadily  on. 
Wherever  artesian  wells  are  yielding  a  large  supply  of  water 
there  are  to-day  fertile  oases  amid  the  deserts  of  unproductive 
land.  There  is  one  peculiarity  about  irrigation  in  Australia : 
very  little  of  it  is  derived  from  running  streams,  and  irrigation 
improvements  are,  therefore,  very  different,  for  example,  from 
those  in  Egypt  and  California.  The  reason  why  the  rivers  are 
not  very  useful  for  irrigation  is  that  the  tributaries  lose  all,  or 
a  great  deal,  of  their  water  by  evaporation  or  percolation  before 
they  reach  the  main  streams.  The  result  is  that  the  Darling, 
Murray,  and  other  important  rivers  contain  so  little  water  during 
the  summer  and  autumn  months  that  it  cannot  be  used  to  flood 
irrigation  ohannels. 
We  should  never  have  heard  of  irrigation  in  Australia  if  it 
had  not  been  for  a  most  interesting  discovery.  It  was  found 
that  the  water  which  disappears  from  the  many  mountain  regions 
is  not  by  any  means  all  lost  through  evaporation.  A  great  deal 
of  it  sinks  through  permeable  strata  of  the  rock,  and  collects 
deep  under  the  ground  in  artesian  reservoirs.  It  needs  only  to 
be  brought  to  the  surface  to  cover  many  areas  with  fertility. 
When  it  was  found  that  a  large  part  of  the  dry  regions  of 
Australia  have  immense  resources  in  underground  waters,  the 
people  began  to  sink  artesian  wells.  The  work  began  in  1881, 
and  is  to-day  being  pushed  more  vigorously  than  ever.  The 
greatest  centre  of  artesian  wells  is  a  vast  region  in  Queensland, 
north  of  the  sources  of  the  Darling  River.  Along  a  line  which 
extends  north,  north-west,  south,  and  south-west,  in  the  form 
of  a  half-circle,  are  over  360  wells,  ranging  in  depth  from  100ft 
to  over  3,000ft.  The  quantity  of  water  from  these  wells  is 
variable,  the  majority  of  them  yielding  at  least  100,000  gallons 
each  every  day.  Some  of  them  yield  one,  three,  and  four  million 
gallons  a  day.  There  are  many  wells  in  other  parts  of  Queens¬ 
land. 
In  New  South  Wales  the  wells  are  much  fewer  in  number, 
though  there  are  several  important  centres,  particularly  at 
Bourke  and  Winton,  where  hundreds  of  thousands  of  sheep  and 
cattle  obtain  their  water  supply  from  these  artesian  wells.  In 
Victoria,  South  Australia,  and  West  Australia,  the  boring  of 
wells  has  scarcely  yet  begun  on  an  important  scale^  though  in 
the  past  two  or  three  years  water  has  been  obtained  in  copious 
supply  at  a  number  of  points.  But  in  Australia  there  is  nothing 
like  the  large  areas  of  land  restored  to  fertility  that  may  be 
observed  throughout  Southern  California.  In  fact,  the  artesian 
waters  are  used  more  to  supply  the  millions  of  sheep  and  cattle 
with  the  drink  they  must  have,  or  perish,  than  to  spread  over 
the  grain  fields  and  fruit  farms.  It  remains  to  be  proven  whether 
vast  areas  of  the  continent  may  be  reclaimed  for  farm  crops  by 
filling  irrigation  ditches  with  artesian  supplies.  At  any  rate,  the 
boring  of  these  wells  has  opened  enormous  areas  of  the  interior 
high  lands  that  were  formerly  useless  to  the  successful  pursuit 
of  stock  raising. 
