ELLESMERE.

Press, Volume L, Issue 14901, 14 February 1914, Page 7

ELLESMERE.

Although rain has been threatening on several occasions, there has been no stoppage of harvest work in tho Ellesmero district during the past week. Farmers hare been making the most of tho fine weather, And on all hands stacking and threshing are in progress. Most of the threshing is usually done from the stook to save extra handling, but at present a fair amount of stacking is being done. Thero is always a good deal of risk attached to stookthreshing. for a spell of wet weather may be experienced, causing much damage to stooked grain, while cereals in tho stack aro quite 6afe. The wet weather last week did practically no damage beyond slightly discoloi'ring some of tho barley and oats. No 6i*gns of sprouting grain, as a result of the rain, are visible anywhere. Anxiety on the part of farmers to get their grain into the stacks has been responsible for a fair amount of wheat being threshed before it was really fit. This, of course, means that tho wheat must sweat in the sacks and deteriorate in value, especially for milling purposes. Fortunately it is only in the early part of the threshing season that this happens, for, given anything like fine weather, the grain soon hardens. On the whole it can be said that the returns are very satisfactory. In some cases a rather largo proportion of seconds has been reported, especially in barley, whilo in many cases samples of wheat has been spoiled by tares, which seemed to flourish this season. One farmer threshed two paddocks of barley, ono yielding 70 bushels to the aero, and the other over seventy. Another farmer had a yield of 89£ bushels to the- acre of Rosberry Oats, while 50 to €0 busheds of wheat, and CO to 70 bushels of oats, are heard of from different quarters of tho district. Threshing machine owners estimate that they have about five weeks' work ahead of them, so that, making some allowance for r wet weather that is likely to occur, threshing will riot be finished until about the end of March. Farmers who attended the sale at Leeston yesterday were well pleased with the fine weather, and it is the general hope that tho favourable conditions will continue for a few weeks.