Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. SATURDAY, JANUARY 16, 1897, THE CRICKET MATCH.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XVII, Issue 4093, 16 January 1897, Page 2

Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. SATURDAY, JANUARY 16, 1897, THE CRICKET MATCH.

The chief object of the promoters of the Queensland-Ashburton cricket match was an educational one, if the woid may be used in that sense. All, of course, wished to see players of the Queenslanders' standing at work, and to enjoy an exhibition of first-class cricket; but the main idea was the patriotic one of giving our young players an opportunity of seeing the game played as it ought to be played, and learning much that can only be learned from seeing good players in action. The Queenslandera, we believe, served admirably as the object lesson it was intended to make of them, and many of our young players carried away from the match a good few " wrinkles " that they might not have picked up for many years to come, unless by some chance they had had an opportunity of seeing first-class cricket played —a chance not likely to occur again in Ash burton for some time, The chief lesson taught by the match is one which old players never cease to impress upon young ones—the necessity for practice on the part of all players who would maintain their form. Men who learned their cricket at good schools are lucky, and our lads here are fortunate in having a fair number of such players in the senior Olub to learn from and copy their play. But the school may be of the highest reputation, and the cricket record made in the past of the very best ; neither will avail as a substitute for practice. Just as it is the used key that is always bright and the unused one dull and rusty, so the player who never misses a practice is the one who can be depended upon in a matcb The player who goes in for steady and regular practice can give an account of himself in the field. He does not over-run the ball; he never J fumbles the pick up ; his return is prompt, and he keeps his head notwithstanding his promptness, and before throwing in takes aim and judges distance. The wicketkeeper loves such a man, as well he might. The practiced player obeys team discipline, gooa where he is sent and, while minding his own field, and beiog there at the proper time, is still on hand for backing up, and saving overthrows. The want of j practice was painfully evident among the home eighteen during the Queensland match, and the smart work of the Queensland men looked even smarter, by comparison. There were eighteen men fielding against them, but the Queenslanders were always managing to get the ball away just where there was nobody to stop it, and had the local men been at all up to even fair village standard in fielding, the visitors would never have been able to score 205 in their first innings. Df McDonald's brilliantly played-for seventy runs was a fine exhibition of cricket, but that brilliant career should have been cut &hort early had the fielding been what it ought to have been. We have already referred in these columng to the loose fielding of the first innings $nd need no* g-> over the ground again, bufc muse here take the opportunity of pointing out; that the practice of that innings was of sufficient waloe to work a marked improvement in Hi* "«*ofid, There were | e wo^ mis--1 i • i-u -"fitul e-say, and everytakes m the se<_ uu <- *> . . , £, ,i j . i ••>* üßcdk- af; least body s?eemed to have go. v- _^ a little of the form that was sup^ oBS ~ to be the basis of their selection, and the pick up and return were smarter and more business like, while some of the catches were a credit to those who made them. The district had no reason to be ashamed of its bowling, Peter, Mac Lean, Dart, Andrews, and F. A. McDonald all putting in remarkably good work, but this, too, would be improved by practice. The batting of the eighteen was certainly not up to the mark. Moore, Jefferson, E. Andrews, and Alington played well, but there was an awkwardness about the work of some of these as well as most of the others, that plainly indicated absence from the practice field. Taken all round, however, it was abundantly shown that we have the stuff here out of which cricketers can be made, if the attempt were made in earnest, and with such a ground available as the Domain, and so very near the centre of the town, it is not creditable that the attempt is not made in greater earnestness. Perhaps, now that Queensland has come and gone and cropped the honor locks of our eighteen with very big shear?, the lessons of the match wili be laid to heart, and the noble game will go forward, with leaps and bounds.

The following, which will be of interest to farmers, ia from a recent issue of

WHEAT SOWING AND THRESHING.

the Marlborough Express : A somewhat astounding discovery in relation to sowing

wheat was recently reported from the Wagga Wagga experimental farm in Australia, It appears to have been proved by trial that 4lb of seed wheat, sown properly, can be made to yield bigger returns than 901b, the quantity per acre invariably used by farmers. A piece of ground consisting of ten acres was sown at the rate of 41b to the aero. And last season, at that rate, yielded from 23 to 40 bushels to the acre, while the average yield from the farmers in the neighborhood did not exceed 12 bushels to the acre. It seems that the process of sowing at Wagga Wagga is to put the seed in by hand, eight inches apart, the drills being 16 inches apart—a very tedious system, and one that no machine could accomplish. A Sydney paper remarks: —We know that broadcast sowing is in all instances very wasteful, and that by using a drill to put in the seed half a bushel will be of as great service as a full bushel, but it remains for Mr Valder, through the Department of Agriculture, to prove that 41b will do as well as QOlb in sowing wheat." It is said by the Wagga Wagga authorities that by sowing the usual of seed, every wheat grower throws away, on the average, £100 worth of seed in every 300 or 400 acres put ia wheat. While qn th© subject

of seed wheat, reference may be made to some facts lately public d in a brief paper by Mr Jacobß, and read at a congress of Agricultural Bureaus in South Australia. For some years the thinness of wheat crops had been noticed, even where up to 901b seed to the acre had been sown, and it was thought that the cause or causes should be ascertained. It had been found out by trial that the germinating value of hand-threshed wheat was 83 per cent more than machine threshed, And if this was found to be a fair average i throughout the colony, it really meant that some 250,000 bushels of wheat are annually wasted, the value of the wheat being some £50,000. For seed purpose, it is alleged that if machine threshed wheat is worth 4s per bushel, hand threshed would be worth 6s. But it is asked, would the extra value pay for the extra labor. j

The latest thing in the way of maniage laws is, if we are to believe what we

read, to be credited to the Argentine Republic, where,

COMPULSORY MATRIMONY.

according to an exchange, a new Act came into operation on the Ist January, 1897, clause' I. of which runs as follows :—" On and after the lat of January, 1897, every male from the age of 20 to 80 shall pay a tax till he marries, and shall pay it once in every month." Imagine this. For golden youth and silver age no escape and no statute of limitation. The bachelor boy, the celibate weighty ia years, the widower rejoicing in his release, will all be hurried to a common doom. And in Argentina no womanno, nor man either—may be fickle, coy, or hard to please. Let us hear clause IT.: " Young celibates of either sex who shall without legitimate motive reject the addresses of him or her (ladies propose in Argentina) who may aspire to her or his hand, and who continue contumaciously unmarried, shall pay the sum of 500 piastres for the benefit of the young person, man. or woman, who has been so refused " Argentina, as M. Francisque Sarcey points out, will be the Utopia of the ugly. However hard the road may be to others, the plain man shall not err if he walks therein. S( Madam, or Sir, I desire the honour of your hand. What! You refuse me because of my facial defects % Then 500 piastres, if you please."

Since the statement of Mr James Ereyberg, the Government timber

expert, as to the possibility of utilising the fibre of the

CABBAGE-TREE FIBRE,

New Zealand cabbage tree (Cordyline Australis) for cordage and other purposes, has been published, Mr Freyberg has been inundated with applications for information as to the method of treatment. For public information, therefore, he sends the Post the following notes:— " Thousands of acres of land in New Zealand are only fit to grow this useful fibre-producing plant, and the material can be furnished in various degrees of fitness according to the youth of the leaves. The earliest kind produces a brilliant silk-like staple, and a full crop' can be cut every year. The mode of production is as follows :—The trunk of a cabbage tree is felled and laid in a trench about 4£in deep, and covered with earth. The rows must be 18in apart. Then shoots come up from every part ail along the trunk, furnishing a grop every year. The leaves, when gathered, have to be boiled two hours or longer, according to age, but gntil they are eqffc and tfye vegetable matter is loosened from the fibre; theu ea(sh leaf must be beaten with a feafflffjer pr mallet from root to point, . —«.eed with & yepy blunt knife, :"a Z "fibre .:•' ■?•* "r^t It should be boiled again to v. ..' and hung out in the sun to bleacn. A small plot of land would furnish employment for old men, women, and children, all the year round, and it is work that may be done in the house in bad weather."