Amaze Your Friends With These Little-Known Facts

Interesting items that surfaced when the editor cleaned up his computer...

An ostrich oddity
The British Country Garden & Smallholding now includes an 8-page insert called Ostrich Review. From this we learned that the ostrich is the only bird that urinates. (Monthly, £23.95 per year outside UK; Buriton House, Station Road, Newport, Saffron Walden, Essex CB11 3PL)

Ostriches in New Zealand
Meanwhile, the head of a New Zealand farm organization, speaking about farming in that part of the world 10 years from now, predicts that "There will be more trees as sheep, beef and dairy give way to forestry. BUT the hillsides won't be dotted with ostriches. These are more likely to be given away as pets. "

Homesteading by another name
Also via the New Zealand publication Rural Garden we note that their term for homestead is "lifestyle farm." (Rural News Co., PO Box 3855, Auckland l New Zealand; bi-monthly, $22 (New Zealand) per year

When is a fir not a fir!
We will never again refer to Douglas fir trees. According to Arbor Day, the proper spelling is Douglasfir--one word. Or hyphenated.

The reason: it's not a fir.

After being discovered by botanists around 1800 it was variously classified as a fir, spruce, hemlock and pine. In 1825 explorer-botanist David Douglas showed that it should be classified in a separate genus of its own. Its Latin name is Psuedotsuga, or false hemlock.--Arbor Day, An Official Publication of the National Arbor Day Foundation, PO Box 81415, Lincoln NE 68501

Define "small farm," please
A few readers think it's silly to discuss the definition of "homesteading. " So what would they think about a high-level meeting to discuss the development of a uniform USDA definition of "small farm" ?

It happened! Representatives of the Agricultural Marketing Service, CSREES, the Economic Research Service, the Farm Service Agency, the Food and Consumer Service, the Foreign Agricultural Service, the National Agricultural Statistics Service and the Rural Development mission area all got together to define a "small farm."

And what did they decide? Considering that we're talking about a committee, and a government one besides, the outcome shouldn't surprise you.

"As a first step, participants decided to share their working definitions of `small farm' with one another in order to obtain an overview of various definitions. They expressed their intention to arrive at a more uniform `smell farm' definition pending further discussion."

And pray tell, what are some of the terms these folks now use for "small farms" ? They include "small farm," "medium farm"-and "large farm."

Sex change operation
Researchers at England's Manchester University and Scottish Agricultural College claim they can increase the number of female chicks hatched in incubators by changing the sex of some male embryos.

They reduce the incubator temperature for short periods during the first three days of incubation. (Temperatures and times were not given.)

Bet you didn't know this!
A ram sheep or buck goat responds to olfactory stimuli from an estrous ewe or doe by exhibiting the Flehman response. (Head back, mouth open, lips curled back.)

Vegetarian water
Here's a bizzare story that helps illustrate just how complex--some might say wacky--our little planet has become.

Some vegetarians in England are refusing to use tap water. They recently found out it's filtered through charcoal.

Charcoal made from burning bones.

Bones of sacred cows, from India.

Sacred cows' bones are preferred because they're allowed to live out their natural lives. Their old bones are brittle, and make perfect material for charcoal filters. Using cattle from Western societies that slaughter them young for beef wouldn't work as well because their bones are relatively soft.

Some people were glad to hear that the bones were imported. At least they're not using mad cows.

Source: Countryside & Small Stock Journal, Mar/Apr98, Vol. 82 Issue 2, p85, 1p