LAKE COUNTY.

Otago Witness, Issue 2026, 22 December 1892, Page 29

LAKE COUNTY.

DECEMBEr 17.— At last some touch-needed rain has fallen, and although the quantity was not nearly enough, it will help to revive the almost parched crops. Coming as it does just in the very nick of time, it may be looked upon as having saved the growing wheat and oats, and though perhaps the harvest will not be a very prolific one, it may now be regarded as of an assured average. The general cry with the local farmer is that the district is too dry for his purpose Yet for the 28 years or so during which farming has been carried on here, there has not been a single failure of crop to any alarming extent, and the present season goes a long way to prove that there are no grounds for such gloomy apprehensions. For the last 12 months the rainfall has been the lowest upon record, and since the end of July last we have had rain upon three occasions only in such quantity as to soften the subsoil, so that with such a record, and the present result, our farmers may rest assured that their occupation is not likely to suffer much from the weather. It is certainly true that the turnips will be a total failure, and cultivated grasses a partial one this season, but this is the case for the first time in, say, 28 years, so that the average is not a Very ominous one.

Bush Fire.— On Thursday last a bush fire deBtroyed a valuable patch of native birch (or rather beech) near Golden Terrace, Arrow river. The patch has for the past 30 years supplied the firewood and mining and building timber for the miners of that neighbourhood, and has shown a wonderful- vitality and rapidity of growth, having renewed itself in that time certainly not less than three or four times. Whether or not it will survive the fire remains to be seen.

Nothing Like Logic— James Daley was proceeded against by the police at Arrowtown under the Slaughter House Act with having mutton in his possession without being i»ble to show where he got it. After a lengthy hearing the charge was dismissed. Sergeant Bowman, who prosecuted, had taken possession of a leg of mutton found on the premises occupied by Daley some days previous to the hearing, and the heat having interfered with the flavour of the meat, the accused asked to have the spoiled leg of mutton replaced by a fresh one. This is good, sound logic, whatever other people may call it.