NEWS AND NOTES.

Press, Volume L, Issue 14909, 24 February 1914, Page 4

NEWS AND NOTES.

WEATHER AND CROPS. TAI TAPU. Fine h&rvost weather has prevailed for tho past two or three weeks, and most of tha crops have now boen secured. The week of rain at the beginning of tho month caused much of the work to conio on «t tho sarno time, and there was consequently a shortage, of hands. It was feared that damage would result from sprouted grain, but as hot drying woathor succeeded, stacking and threshing were pushed on vigorously, and the crops suffered little damage.* There is a general complaint about length of atraw, due to the excess of rain in tho growing season. Oats are threshing out well, but barley in many cases will give a, yield considerably below the average, both as to quality and quantity. Peas are now being cut, and the hot dry weather has enabled stacking to go on without delay. Th/R pastures aro beginning to show the. effect of the hot dry weather, and rain is needed to revive them. MID-CANTERBURY. Fine hai-vest weather was experienced i-: the Ash burton district yesterday, and a lot of harvest work was got through. There is still a good deal iv stook in the Orari, Geraldine, and "Winchester districts, and a considerable amount of stook threshing is going on. Mr C. Opie,.of Winchester, has n very hoavy crop of oats to thresh. Jt got badly laid and twisted about during the heavy rains in December, and but for this Mr Opie considers it ■would have threshed out fully 100 bushels per aero. Thero aro eoino hoavy crops of wheat to be seen in stook on Mr G. McDonald's Orari estate. Mrs Fitzgerald, of Orari. recently had threehed out a paddock of oats which averaged GS bushels per acre. Mr Tavender, also of Orari, ha« threshed out 70 acres of wheat which yielded an all-round average of ofJ bushels per acre, grown on land which ho purchased just a few years .ago at £'3 an acre. Another Orari farmer has bagged up from the threshing mill a crop of wheat which averaged nvor 50 bushels an acre. Mr J. EarJo has iv crop of Rod Chaff wheat which it is estimated will go fully 60 bushels tier aero, and a crop of oats which will thresh out over 80 bushel* pc- acre. Both these crops were grown on the Orari Racecourse. Mr J. Connelly, of Rnkapukn. Geraldine, had a crop of Solid Straw Tuscan wheat whiHi would have given a very good yieXl, but it got badly damaged by tho rains and winds in December. Ho has however, threshed out n 50 acre crop of Red Chaff wheat which gave an average yield of oo bushels per acre.