VICTORIA.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 4, Issue 195, 14 June 1860, Page 4

VICTORIA.

Its Agriculture and Stock.— The market for breadstuffs still remains high, each successive week showing a trifling increase in pripe, and yet the supplies from our own farming districts, as well as from extra-colonial ports, continue slack. How long the present rates will be maintained seems to puzzle the most knowing corn-dealers, and speculative purchases are very limited. Colonial oats and malting barley are in the ascendant, and likely to remain in tolerable demand for immediate consumption. Hay has reached a more paying price than for some time past, but it has to be of very choice quality to reach the top quoted figure of £7; in fact, £6 is nearer the average rate.

Cattle have been plentiful, and not particularly good, so prices have receded : really fat bullocks, however, are scarce and saleable. Store stock are dull of sale. Firsttclass wethers are eagerly bought up, and second-rate sheep find quick customers at good prices. Calves are hard to obtain.

There has been an evident desire amongst agriculturists to test practically which of all the varieties of grasses, vetches, anil root crops are best adapted to the soil and climate of the colony. Numerous experiments have been made, and although, owing to the continued drought experienced during last summer, the crops have in many instances pre-. maturely perched, enough success lias been obtained to warrant ,the anticipation that, with more favourable seasons, or by the aid of irrigation, both green and root crops may become a profitable staple of cultivation in the colony. The crop that appears to have most generally failed has been the potato, and by far the majority of the growers attribute this fesult to the scarcity of rain last year. In many of the parishes of the county of Bourke, more especially within twenty miles of the metropolis, the yield is declared not to average one ton to the acre; while, in numerous instances, it has not been considered worth the labour of digging the potatoes at all. Throughout nearly the whole extent of the plains, too, in the county of Bourke, the yield of the grain crops has proved exceedingly low ; about 20 bushels to the acre of wheat, and 25 of oats, being the highest average. Of oaten hay, the returns are stated to show somewhat over one ton to the acre. A very different result is exhibited in the northern portion of the county, where the general yield is declared to have been in excess of former years. This is chiefiy attributable to the fact that, in the vicinity of the ranges, a greater degree of moisture is obtained. The seasonable rains that have lately fallen have enabled the farmers generally to ntake rapid anil beneficial progress with sowing operations, and there is now little doubt of a good plant being secured. Some of our advanced agriculturists have also profited by the showers to broadcast a dressing of guano on their newly sown lands, which, it is only reasonable to suppose, will ensure them a corresponding benefit when the next-harvest arrives.