442 
'OURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER 
November  P,  1902. 
a  writer  on  American  agriculture,  we  only  got  a  special 
minister  when  our  agriculture  was  dead.  Well,  we  don’t 
quite  think  so,  and  we  have  not  a  word  to  say  against  our 
present  man,  but  still  it  seems  to  us  that  it  is  only  by  happy 
chance  we  have  got  a  good  man  this  time — it  is  quite 
probable  that  at  the  next  change  of  Government  we  may  get 
a  man  with  no  more  knowledge  of  our  requirements  than  a 
two-year-old  bullock. 
It  has  been  dinned  into  our  ears  so  long  that  no  Govern¬ 
ment  cares  twopence  for  us,  that  we  are  beginning  to  believe 
the  statement,  and  thus  we  fail  to  exert  ourselves  when  an 
election  comes  to  remedy  this  state  of  things.  Here  the 
apathy  comes  in.  The  evidence  that  we  have  been  reading 
lately  relating  to  the  malpractices  of  the  remount  buyers  has 
not  been  very  pleasant,  and  not  calculated  to  give  us  a  good 
opinion  of  those  engaged  in  the  traffic.  There  has  been  far 
too  much  of  the  shadiest  class  of  horse-copers  at  work,  and 
the  Government  has  been  defrauded  and  cheated  on  all  sides. 
We  don’t  wish  for  a  moment  to  impugn  the  characters  of 
those  officers  who  did  the  work.  As  honourable  men  they 
expected  to  deal  with  honourable  men,  but  their  very 
simplicity  landed  them  in  difficulties.  A  few  shrewd  fox 
hunting  farmers,  examples  of  which  we  could  pick  out  in 
every  hunt  in  England,  would  have  done  the  work  far  better, 
with  credit  to  themselves  and  at  a  tithe  of  the  expense  to 
the  country.  This  will  all  happen  again  the  next  time  we 
have  a  big  war — we  are  so  stupid,  it  takes  so  many  lessons 
before  we  arrive  at  the  most  simple  facts. 
We  will  now  touch  on  a  point  that  affects  the  meat-eating 
community.  Those  who  studied  the  Board  of  Trade  returns 
as  regards  agricultural  live  stock  would  note  with  appre¬ 
hension  the  diminution  of  our  live  stock,  and  at  the  same 
time  they  will  note  that  their  butcher’s  bills  are  increasing 
in  an  unpleasant  manner.  It  is  said  by  the  London  Butchers’ 
Society  that  the  rise  in  meat  is  equivalent  to  a  reduction  in 
the  working  man’s  wages  of  2s.  per  week.  The  people  who 
will  feel  the  pinch  the  most  are  those  who  have  small  and 
unfluctuating  salaries.  Together  with  this  shortage  of  home- 
fed  meat  we  have  been  obliged  to  close  our  ports  to  live 
stock  from  Argentina.  Chilled  and  foreign  meat,  indeed, 
does  come,  but  as  long  as  there  is  the  slightest  suspicion  of 
disease  in  that  country  the  law'  is  very  plain  as  to  our  duty 
in  keeping  our  ports  closed.  There  may  not  at  this  moment 
be  actual  disease  in  Argentina,  but  Mr.  Hanbury  points  out 
that  the  authorities  of  that  country  were  allowing  cattle  to 
be  landed  on  their  shores  from  infected  districts,  and  as 
long  as  that  is  so  we  must  continue  to  protect  ourselves  by 
stringent  regulation. 
There  is  another  set  of  good  folk  who  have  a  grievance 
just  now  against  Mr.  Hanbury.  Our  Scottish  farmers  would 
like  to  be  allowed  to  import  from  Canada  young  stock  for  the 
purpose  of  store.  They,  like  us,  complain  of  a  shortage  of 
home-bied  stock,  and  they  would  fain  supply  the  deficiency 
from  over  seas.  So  far,  Mr.  Hanbury  is  obdurate.  He  is 
by  no  means  convinced  that  Canada  can  show  a  clean  bill  of 
health,  and  the  result,  ivere  disease  imported  (as  it  easily 
might  be,  and  has  been  many  and  many  a  time),  would  be 
most  terribly  disastrous. 
Fiom  beef  to  milk.  It  is  all  this  standard  business  that 
is  causing  the  bother.  Constantly  some  well-known,  highly 
respectable  farmer  is  being  hauled  before  the  justices  for 
defrauding  his  customers  of  their  proper  percentage  of  fat  in 
the  milk  j\i  o  account  is  taken  of  the  fact  that  the  morning’s 
milk  is  always  lower  in  fat  than  the  evening’s,  and  that  if  both 
milks  were  averaged  the  percentage  would  always  exceed  the 
legal  standard.  Only  last  week,  in  a  leading  agricultural 
paper,  a  farmer  stated  that  inspectors  are  by  no  means  care¬ 
ful  enough  in  taking  their  samples  for  analysis.  He  in¬ 
stanced  his  owm  case,  where  the  portion  sent  to  him  on  being 
forwarded  to  an  analyist  came  out  at  6.5  milk  fat.  He  knew' 
limself  that  must  be  absolutely  wrong,  for  on  taking  another 
sample  the  result  was  34  per  cent,  fat,  much  nearer  the  point, 
inese  sort  of  things  are  constantly  occurring,  and  more  often 
the  result  is  adverse  to  the  milk  dealer.  One  is  equally  as 
unfair  as  the  other. 
Then  there  is  another  point  which  causes  much  soreness, 
and  really  is  a  great  check  to  legitimate  trade.  We  refer  to 
the  regulations  respecting  swine  fever.  We  believe  now  the 
final  referees  are  the  members  of  the  County  Council,  instead 
o  ,  as  in  former  days,  the  magistrates  of  the  petty  sessional 
division,  ouppose  there  is  an  outbreak  of  sw'ine  fever  in  a 
ceitain  county  division  ;  for  the  sake  of  argument  we  will 
suppose  the  outbreak  is  almost  on  the  boundary  line  of 
another  county.  The  whole  county  division,  be  it  ever  so 
wide,  is  declared  infected,  whereas  no  difficulty  is  made 
respecting  that  county  which  is  only  separated  from  the 
infectious  place  by  a  few  miles ,  but  still  out  of  the  county 
boundary.  There  is  at  present  an  extraordinary  scarcity  of 
pigs  for  either  breeding  or  store,  and  this  will  continue  to 
be  the  case  till  the  restrictions  are  tempered  with  a  little 
more  common  sense. 
By  all  means  isolate  and  quarantine  any  suspicious  cases, 
but  make  the  cordon  quite  irrespective  of  county  boundary. 
There  is  no  magic  in  the  imaginary  divisional  line.  We 
omitted  one  little  fact  about  the  milk  traffic.  A  dairyman  is 
subject  to  visits  from  inspectors,  w'ho  see  that  his  stock  is 
healthy  and  his  buildings  clean.  His  milk  is  tested,  and  he 
is  pulled  up  sharply  for  any  shortcoming.  He  must  not  sell 
milk  if  he  should,  unfortunately,  have  a  case  of  infectious 
disease  in  his  house.  These  regulations  are  all  suitable  and 
good,  and  we  don’t  quarrel  with  them  ;  but  what  we  do 
object  to  is  that  milk  may  be  sent  to  us  from  abroad — it  is 
received,  sold,  consumed,  and  no  questions  whatever  are 
asked. 
Of  course,  it  would  be  practically  impossible  to  trace  that 
foreign  milk  to  its  source,  and  even  then  wre  should  have  no 
locus  standi  to  interfere  ;  but  if  we  had  any  say  in  the  matter 
we  would  take  good  care  that  no  foreign  milk  was  put  on  our 
markets  which  did  not  first  pay  so  big  a  toll  as  to  make  the 
business  practically  prohibitive.  This  sounds  vindictive — 
perhaps  it  is,  but  we  have  still  to  learn  why  the  gander 
should  not  be  served  with  the  same  sauce  as  the  goose. 
One  more  word  and  we  have  done  (not  that  the  list  is 
closed  by  any  means).  For  the  week  ending  October  4  (this 
year)  the  import  of  hops  is  9,137  cwts.,  as  against  425  cwts. 
the  same  week  last  year,  and  yet  all  these  hops  are  allowed 
to  be  landed  without  tariff,  or  any  restriction  or  regulation 
as  to  where  grown  and  when,  and  other  particulars  which 
English  growers  are  obliged  to  furnish  or  are  subjected  to 
pains  and  penalties.  Is  this  right  l  We  make  bondmen  of 
the  home  born  and  extend  the  freedom  of  breweries  to  every 
outsider.  Verily  this  is  Free  Trade  with  a  vengeance. 
Work  on  the  Home  Farm. 
We  have  had  a  fine  week,  have  practically  finished  Potato 
getting,  and  are  now  able  to  do  something  like  a  systematic 
threshing.  Previously  there  was  neither  time  nor  suitable 
weather  for  the  job,  and  when  half  a  dozen  neighbours  are  waiting 
for  the  machine  it  would  be  selfish  to  keep  it  long,  so  we  have 
pushed  on  with  the  other  work  after  threshing  just  enough 
straw  for  pressing  needs.  Now  we  have  got  the  machine  back,  and 
are  dipping  deeply  into  the  Barley  stacks.  So  far  the  result  is  not 
unsatisfactory.  The  yield  is  fairly  good,  and  there  is  less  tail  com 
than  was  expected.  The  colour  is  fair,  and  much  improved  in  the 
stack  ;  it  will  be  better  still  for  a  little  longer  sweat  in  the  other 
stacks.  Price  is  disappointing  for  good-class  Barley.  It  should 
realise  more  than  28s.  per  quarter.  The  markets  have  been  very 
slow  owing  to  so  much  corn  coming  in  out  of  condition,  but 
there  are  signs  of  a  better  demand  for  the  well  got  samples. 
There  is  certainly  more  inquiry.  We  ought  to  be  thankful  for 
having  got  6ur  corn  so  well,  and  to  be  selling  fair  crops  at  28s, 
for  from  information  just  received  there  is  much  grain  still 
out  on  the  high  wolds  of  Yorkshire  and  Lincolnshire.  One  farmer 
in  the  latter  county  had  500  acres  still  in  the  fields  a  few  days  ago. 
We  have  noticed  a  drill  at  work,  and  shall  be  using  ours  to 
put  the  ley  Wheat  in  at  once.  The  Potato  land  must  be  ploughed, 
and  then  it  will  be  ready  to  follow  on  with.  We  shall  sow 
12  pecks  of  seed  after  ley,  as  the  season  is  late,  but  only  10  pecks 
after  Potatoes.  Though  it  has  been  fine  overhead,  Potato 
gathering  has  been  dirty  work  lately,  and  much  soil  has  gone 
into  the  pies.  A  neighbour  who  got  some  Potatoes  up  one  day 
and  sent  them  to  London  the  next,  has  quickly  had  a  letter  from 
his  customer  there  reminding  him  that  he  has  bought  his  Potatoes, 
not  the  soil  of  his  farm.  Those  Potatoes  were  sorted  by  hand.  If 
a  riddle  had  been  used  there  could  have  been  no  complaint. 
The  sheep  are  beginning  to  take  well  to  Turnips,  and  now  that 
we  can  spare  an  extra  hand,  the  roots  yill  all  be  cut  for  them. 
On  the  portions  which  they  have  grazed  there  will  be  some  waste, 
as  the  hoggs  do  not  clean  up  the  shells  and  the  ewes  are  not  ready 
to  do  it  for  them. 
We  fancy  that  unripe  Turnips  may  have  caused  some  of  the 
losses  amongst  lambs  (we,  perhaps,  should  say  hoggs),  whose 
delicate  stomachs  never  could  stand  very  green  Turnip  tops.  If 
the  tops  are  trimmed  off  a  couple  of  days  before  use  there  is  no 
danger. 
The  pigs  are  rejoicing  in  plenty  of  steamed  Potatoes,  and  are 
doing  well.  The  harrowings,  as  they  are  picked  off  the  land,  make 
grand  pig  feed.  Sound  Potatoes  are  cheaper  than  diseased  ones 
for  pig  food  even  if  they  cost  double  the  price. 
