GENERAL FARMING NEWS.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 817, 14 May 1910, Page 8

GENERAL FARMING NEWS.

This week the Feilding district was drawn on for the shipment of draught horses for Australia. The whole 56 sent on the Moeraki to Sydney yesterday were from Feilding and its neighbourhood.

:• From latest advices it appears that feeling for and against tbo Eltham Dairy Company's scheme'of dairy farm inspection is equally divided. A wellknown Eltham resident gives it as his opinion the inspecting will last a season. It is generally recognised, he says, that tho success or failure of the scheme depends entirely on the -man appointed. The inspector'will not have the powers of compulsion, possessed by a Government inspector, and his work will be mainly educative. Inspectors were employed by the Dalefield Company and one or two others some years ago, but in no case- did the position become a permanency.

Mr. Stanley Shaw, manager for Mr. Newton King, has telegraphed his firm that there was a splendid sale of Mr. Day's pedigree Jerseys at Tamahere, near Hamilton. Taranaki buyers bought well. The highest priced cow was purchased by Mr. R. Linn, of Normanby, for 88 guineas. It woujd appear from the reports of this sale, and the fact that there is likely to be a shortage amongst dairy cows, for some years, that' owners of pedigree dairy stock are in for a good time.

An extraordinary demand for land is stated to 'exist in the Lower Waikato, and, according to the Auckland "Weekly News," sales are being recorded in quick succession. Numbers of old-established settlers who have had good returns in the past from their fan-s are selling out the whole or portion of their holdings. Many of the buyers are farmers from tho south.

Root crops in many'parts of North <Otago have been more or less a failure this season. But hero and there (says the "Oamaru Mail") there are patches of both turnips and mangolds above the average. Mr. Robert Hill, of Otiake, has some very fine mangolds, of which he has sent specimens to town. We have seen two roots of Berkshire Prize Yellow Globe mangold weighing respectively 301b and 351b. The larger root measures 3ft. sin. in circumference.

Rain fell in South Canterbury all day on Monday and throughout tho night. Tuesday was dull . with occasional showers. The rain was needed and will be of much benefit to farmers, i

The Agricultural Association o{ Wanganui has been approached by the Agricultural Department with offers of various new varieties of cereals to be grown in their district for seed-testing purposes. The crop grown would be the property of the grower, but the Department reserves the right to_ purchase from him such quantities as it may require for further experiment work on other soils. The grower, on the other hand will be expected to put in a larger area of the orop gr<jwn, in the following year, and so test its yield and suitability under ordinary farming conditions, and report upon results obtained. The chief object of these seed trials is to produce dean seed, and collect reliable data from t'he farmers undertaking the experimental work. Pour farmers in the Wanganui district havo been appointed to co-operate, with the Department...