To indicate briefly the complete difference between the two cases, a few facts regarding them may be mentioned. The Mildura Estate, and water rights in connection with it, were granted to Messrs. G. and W. B. Chaffey, who naturally arranged to subdivide and sell their property in the manner which they deemed would be most profitable to them. The Wentworth Irrigation Area, and water rights attaching to it, were granted to a public Trust, which was precluded from making any profit. The lowest price for land at Mildura was £20 per acre, and the settlers had high rates to pay for the water. At Wentworth the Trust could only make such charges as would cover working expenses and interest on outlay, and provide a sinking fund. At Mildura the water had to be pumped to heights ranging generally from 60 feet to 90 feet. At Wentworth the lift averages little, if anything, over 25 feet.

The facts stated above show the striking dissimilarity between the Mildura and Wentworth irrigation projects, but, unfortunately for the Trust, it was sufficient for the general public to know that Wentworth is situated near Mildura, and that serious difficulties had arisen at the irrigation settlement at the latter place. Without taking the trouble to making inquiry into the circumstances, it was assumed that similar difficulties would be experienced in connection with irrigation at the former. Under these discouraging circumstances the trustees applied to the Minister that he should dissolve the Trust, as empowered in the Act, and that the Government should assume and use the powers conferred by the Act on the trustees. Eventually it was decided by the Minister that this course should be adopted, and the Trust was dissolved accordingly.

In pursuance of the powers which he now holds, the Minister called for tenders for a pumping plant, and also for the construction of a pump-well and engine-house. The contract for the supply and erection of the former was obtained by Mr. R. Tulloch, of the Phoenix Iron Works, Sydney, while the contract for the latter work was obtained by Mr. D. F. Maclean, of Wentworth. Both contracts are now in progress, and the construction of the distributory channels will soon be put in hand.

The soil to be irrigated was inspected, and approved of by Mr. Thompson, Principal of the Hawkesbury Agricultural College, and by Mr. Despeissis, of the Agricultural Department. Samples were analysed with very satis factory results by Mr. F. B. Guthrie, chemist to that department.

The work will be capable of irrigating about 1,500 acres of land. A design for the subdivision of about this area is now being prepared, and it is expected that details regarding this design, and the principles on which the land will be let will be decided in time for description in the next issue of the Agricultural Gazette.

Wentworth is situated at the confluence of the Murray and Darling Rivers, and the land to be subdivided is within 3 miles of the town. The climate is decidedly healthy, and both soil and climate are highly suitable for the production of fruit. The river Murray, which seldom falls so low as to cause interruption to navigation, affords a cheap means of carriage, and a line for connecting Wentworth with the railways of this Colony has been surveyed. The proposed railway from Condobolin to Menindie and Broken Hill will afford easy means of communication between Wentworth and the latter place, while it will also open direct communication by river and rail with Sydney. The central position which the town of Wentworth occupies, the fact that it is at the confluence of the two greatest systems of river com munication in Australia, and the immense areas of fertile land through which these rivers flow, are guarantees for great future development.

Tuberculosis in Cattle and Dr. Koch's Tuberculin.

BY EDWARD STANLEY, F.R.C.V.S.,

Chief Veterinary Inspector.

TUBERCULOSIS is a disease characterised in living cattle (bovines) by enlargements of the lymphatic glands, giving them a nodular or tuberous appearance. Some of these glands are situated near the surface of the body, and when they are diseased, are easily seen, as they form tumours of various sizes, from an egg to a football, and are found at the base of the ear, at the angle of the jaws, inside the throat, interfering with respiration; at the base of the neck, near the top of the shoulder, or in the flank (where the head of the milker rests while he is milking); and occasionally in other parts. Such tumours are erroneously spoken of by cattlemen as cancers. On cutting open one of these tumours the contents are cheesy masses embedded in flesh, or may be softened to abscesses of yellow creamy matter.

Cattle diseased as described above should be destroyed, because the disease is the same as consumption in human beings; it is incurable and contagious, and both the flesh and milk are legally condemned as unfit for human food. Sometimes the disease is located in the internal organs: then the lymphatic glands situated all along the viscera, between the lungs, and in clusters on the several organs, are more or less tuberculated, similar to those previously described near the surface of the body, and we find in some cases tubercles growing like little red nodules, either separate or in confluent masses, scattered over the inside of the chest and abdomen; these are called grapes or angle berries.

Tubercles and tubercular cheesy masses, or abscesses, are often found in the lungs, sometimes in the liver and other organs. It is impossible to know the extent of disease inside a living animal, although suspicion may be aroused by a chronic cough, a wasted body, frequent diarrhea, and general weakness, or to diagnose the disease, as indeed some apparently healthy looking cattle are found full of tubercles on being slaughtered. To meet this difficulty Dr. Koch's tuberculin has proved to be a most valuable aid.

Tuberculosis is caused by the entrance into the body of the tubercle bacillus, and spreads by exceeding minute spores, even too small to permit of microscopic demonstration, through the blood-vessels, to remote parts of the body; they become arrested in the lymphatic glands, and there excite disease.

The contagion is spread from one animal to another by the expectorated mucous, coughed from the mouth and air passages; with the evacuations in diarrhoea; with the milk from a diseased udder; and by the cow licking her calf; or by cattle licking each other; or by feeding out of the same byres, or troughs.

The importance of this disease to the public health, and the losses it occasions stock owners, clearly indicates that in their own interests, they should prevent and curtail so costly a pest in their herds. Especially now that it can be done by exercising care in breeding, and with the aid of tuberculin, cull all the diseased.

Dr. Bang, Denmark, has written a most interesting account of his experiments with the tuberculin. By its use he has divided his herd into two classes-one being cattle infected with tuberculosis, the other healthy cattle. He does not permit a suspected cow to rear a calf, but removes it at birth to the healthy lot, as he has found it exceedingly rare for a calf to be diseased before birth, but they cannot escape contamination, by licking, or by milk of a diseased parent. Tainted bulls undoubtedly transmit a powerful hereditary predisposition, so that their progeny very easily take the contagion; therefore, a suspected bull is not used.

Absolute isolation is maintained between the infected and non-infected herds, although both are kept on the same farm.

By this method he is saving a valuable healthy herd from contaminated parents. This plan is certainly more commendable than to attempt to eradicate so widespread a malady by the expensive and uncertain procedure of detecting and destroying all diseased or suspected cattle, as has been attempted, and failed in the American State of Massachusetts.

Koch's Tuberculin,

This is a light-brown fluid, with a faint smell, and is simply a glycerine extract of pure cultivations of the tubercle bacillus, filtered through porcelain, and thereby it is absolutely free from the disease germs, so that there is no risk whatever of conveying tuberculosis by injecting this fluid into either mankind or other animals.

The tuberculin is sold in small sealed bottles, containing sufficient to inject five cattle, or in larger quantities, from Dr. Koch's laboratory in Germany, and bears his label and metal seal, and can be had from wholesale druggists in Sydney.

It keeps well, but if contaminated by exposure, it then becomes turbid, and is useless.

Use of Tuberculin.

It is used as a purely scientific method of determining the existence of the disease by measuring the reactions caused by its injection, as shown by the temperature of the animal at given periods after the inoculation.

The cow to be tested should have the body temperature taken and recorded, by inserting a clinical thermometer into the rectum or vagina, and retain it there for at least two minutes. Do this about ten hours before, and again at the time of inoculating. It should register 100 to 102 degrees, that being the usual normal temperature of the animal.

The evening record is usually a few points higher than in the morning, and is the most convenient time for inoculating.

The operation is done with an ordinary subcutaneous injection syringe, graduated into minims, or into cubic centimetres. The dose is from 5 minims, or C.C., to one centigramme of the tuberculin.

The hair should be clipped off an inch or so of skin behind the shoulder. The skin may be washed with some disinfectant, then the needle is thrust through the skin and downwards just under it, and the piston pressed to eject the fluid, then carefully withdraw the needle. The tuberculin will permeate the whole body, and if the cow is tuberculous, it will, in a few hours, cause a mild fever. This is ascertained by using the thermometer (say) about twelve hours after the inoculation, and repeat the observations every three or four hours. The register will rise from 1 to 3 degrees above the normal record of health. The fever is at its height in about twenty hours after the injection, then gradually subsides and disappears altogether.

If the animal is free from tuberculosis then the temperature of the body remains unaltered throughout the whole time, merely rising or falling a few points, due to natural surroundings.

A rise of 1 degree only is suspicious, but not decidedly definite, but from 3 degrees is considered diagnostic of the existence of tuberculosis.

In case of a doubtful reaction the animal can be treated as a suspect, and retested a few months later.

It is advisable that a qualified veterinary surgeon be engaged for the inoculation, as the remedy is not absolutely infallible. Care is required to ensure its useful employment.

The instruments must be maintained in perfect working order, scrupulously clean, and the tuberculin be genuine, pure, and uncontaminated.

In all cases it requires using with much discretion and patience-with due allowance for various circumstances likely to affect the animal's temperature. This is disturbed by illness or inflammation of any kind, advanced pregnancy, excitement of driving or of bailing up, and their individual temperament; also by meteorological conditions, which powerfully affect animal heat.

In chronic latent tuberculosis there may be little or no reliable reaction. This is unimportant, as the disease is inactive and non-contagious. Doubtful cases can be retested. Other diseases do not react to the tuberculin test. With all due allowance for occasional mishaps, it is far away the most reliable agent for diagnosing obscure tuberculosis in bovines, and it is one of the discoveries of the age. Its importance and usefulness is extensively recognised throughout Europe and America, and it will be invaluable to Australian owners of stud and dairy cattle when they recognise the ruinous policy of maintaining disease by breeding it.

TABLE giving particulars of Tuberculin inoculations I have made recently with most satisfactory results:—

A very delicate cow-a 101-2 102.6 102-0 102.6 102.5 102-4 102-0 102-0 Internal organs all milker.

healthy; an old broken hip caused debility.

101-2 102-4 101-1 102-0 102.8 105.5 105 4 1050 Tubercles were in the

lungs and bronchial glands.

In fair condition--a dry 1018 1024 101-4 101.6 101-8 102-2 102.5 102.2 Only one small calcified cow, udder hard.

tubercular gland found. Otherwise healthy.

A beautiful cow, heavy in 1008 102-2 101.2 102-0 103-0 106-3 106-8 106-6 Throat and bronchial calf; had a cough.

glands badly tubercled.

Pasteurising Cream for Butter-making.

By J. L. THOMPSON,

Principal, Hawkesbury Agricultural College.

I HAVE the honor to report that the process adopted in Europe for Pasteurising of cream for butter-making has proved of great value. The process "Pasteurising" is named after the great chemist Pasteur, lately deceased. It consists of raising the temperature of the cream to between 160 and 170 degrees Fahr. This checks the life forces of all micro-organisms introduced from the atmosphere, from the milk vessels, from the bodies of the cows, or from the clothing or persons of the milkers. These micro-organisms cause the cream to ferment or ripen, and may bring about good, bad, or medium butter. By pasteurising, the natural ferments are retarded in their action, and then an artificial ferment is introduced, which will ripen the cream in about eighteen hours; whereas in cold weather, it generally takes from two to three days before the cream is properly ripened for churning. By retarding the action of the natural ferments by heat, then cooling the cream to a temperature of about 70 degrees, and introducing the lactic acid bacteria, more uniform and better results in the production of butter can be obtained. In the ripening of cream in the usual way by the aid of natural ferments, it is a mere matter of chance whether the cream turns out good, bad, or indifferent, but by killing or checking their development by means of heat, and introducing the proper lactic acid ferments, you can ensure a certainty of good butter. More butter is obtained by this method, with better flavour, and far better keeping qualities. Another advantage in Pasteurising is that if the cream is badly tainted with turnips, &c., or contains detrimental gases, by heating it up to 160 degrees Fahr., and then cooling down to 70 degrees Fahr. to ripen, taking care to place in a clean, cool atmosphere, the taints and gases are to a great extent driven off. We thus secure to the cream conditions most suitable for the production of good butter. At the same time it gives a larger yield, owing to the high temperature bringing about an equality of condition throughout the whole of the cream. Before we obtained a proper Pasteuriser, we experimented in this respect, by simply raising the temperature of the cream, by putting the can into hot water, with very excellent results, and we exhibited some butter at the last Royal Agricultural Show, made in this way. We have also used a lactic ferment for cheese-making with splendid results.

The new patent cream Pastueriser can be obtained in Svdney, costing, No. 1, £21; No. 2, £25 10s.; No. 3, £33. I would say the Pastuerising of cream and making of butter by the introduction of artificial ferments has been tried in Victoria, but the results have not been very satisfactory. In Denmark, where it may be truly said the best butter is made, the cream is always Pastuerised before churning, and it is butter of this kind which the Danes manufacture for export to India. A necessary adjunct in connection with the Pastueriser is a proper cooler which can also be obtained in Sydney, costing, for No. 1, £6 10s.; No. 2, £8 10s. ; and No. 3, £12 10s.

A No. 2 Pasteuriser and a No. 2 cooler have now been added to the college dairy, and the results are all that could be desired.