and highly spoken of Spineless Cactus, said to be the heaviest cropper per acre of anything on earth, was also a wash out." After the foregoing experiments, attention was entirely given to Guinea Grass as the most suitable plant to meet local conditions. Farmers in the old country would have a grievance, if, after having purchased virgin ground, cleared it of scrub, trenched it over eighteen inches deep, dug in about sixty tons farm yard manure per acre and planted grass they had to pay an annual Crown Rent to the Government from $15 to $25 per acre. Guinea Grass is very succulent when cut young but is almost useless when allowed to run to seed. It grows rapidly in moist weather and has the advantage of being an exceed- ingly heavy cropper. It is weighed in daily by picul-stick at the doors of the cow-sheds. This method enables the Company to know what is being consumed and so to regulate quantities and prevent waste. It is estimated that the weight of green grass per acre per annum runs from forty to forty- four tons. This weight is not obtained by "sitting down and looking at it." The Company keeps a large staff continually working at it, either hoeing, manuring, cutting by hand-hook, carrying it in handy baskets to be weighed at cow-sheds, or lifting old roots and recultivating the ground, which is done once in every two or three years. The grass is not sown (that process is too slow); it is planted with fresh slips taken from old roots and carefully inserted at regular intervals of about fifteen inches.
SILOS.
During the spring and summer season, grass grows very rapidly, and the 860 cattle now on the Company's farms are unable to consume the entire quantity grown on 145 acres of land of very inferior quality. The surplus green fodder is converted into silage, which is the only substitute for green food obtainable in sufficient quantity during the winter months in Hong Kong. Six silos are scattered over the farms at convenient centres, and have a combined accommodation of about 600 tons silage; they are built with stone against the hillsides with the interior surface cemented Paths along the hillsides lead to the filling platform near the smooth. roof of the silo and there the grass is chaffed before being thrown into the pit.
PIGS.
The Company commenced to keep pigs in 1893 with a few importations from Australia. Prior to the advent of the Butchery department, it used to issue notices to prospective buyers once a week during the winter months. In this small way the famed Dairy Farm Pork was introduced to the European population of Hong Kong. During recent years, the growth in this direction has been very rapid. Fifty farrowing pens have had to be erected with accommodation for 400 fat pigs, while the open paddocks, where most of the feeding is done, number sixty. In all, the accommodation is sufficient for 2,600 pigs. The foundation animals cost quite large sums.
For some particular ones as much as £50 was paid. From time to time fresh strains have been imported from the famous registered herds of the Duchess of Albany, the Earl of Sefton, Lord Rosebery, D. W. Philips of Whitacre; Rolleston, Hants; Alfred Brown Ltd., Hill Farm, Hants.; Parkhill, Tring; and the Hawkesbury College, Australia; the importations including Sam Black, Bookham Bill, Whitacre Baronet, Southampton Swell, Pattie of Claremont, Cruxeth Rose, Rolleston Venus, Lucy of Whitacre and many others all registered in the Herd Book of the National Pig Breeders' Associa- tion, and prize winners at the leading shows throughout the country. The breeding of pigs is on a level with the breeding of cattle, in so far as the dominating principles are concerned. Pedigree sires in every instance are essential factors in impressing any herd of pigs with symmetry, vigour, early maturity, and other lucrative qualifications. The Company only imports pedigree sires of the most suitable strains for the climate. The pigs when young are turned out in paddocks on various parts of the farm. where they are fed on the best of foods, including the by-products of the dairy, skim milk, butter milk and whey. In the hot weather, water is avail- able to them as well as shelter under trees and in sheds, and they are taken back to pens convenient to the slaughter house before slaughter. The slaughter house is on the farm, and here the Company constantly employ four killers with every modern appliance at hand for the work. Pigs are subject to various diseases, the most rapidly fatal and highly infectious being swine fever. The Company's herd suffer very badly from this disease. Whole paddocks from time to time have been wiped out, including some of the famous breeding pens of boars and sows.
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