GENERAL FARMING NEWS.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1102, 15 April 1911, Page 8

GENERAL FARMING NEWS.

-,The -weather continues warm, and dry, ami more, rain'would prove very beneficial (says'the Beaconsfield-correspond-ent ■of the Feilding ."Star"). The local creamery is nou* taking milk every other day, and some of. the dairy farmers are cotnmcncing : to milk their herds once a ■2?'" "1 th " tho intention of drying them off a'littJe learliar than usual, to givs them every chance to get into condition for next spring. ; At a meeting of the New Plymouth >v inter Show Committee, correspondence was read concerning the judging of butter exhibits, and Mr. D. Cuddie, Dairy Commissioner, stated that in the P as t very little difficulty had been experienced in judging fresh and salted butter in the same class, ns tho prizewinning exhibits lve'ro always selected from butter which possessed tho cleanest: or.most desirable flavour, irrespec-.tiye-iof whether it contained salt or,-not. • -A'Nelson paper states that Mr. F. Fairey, of Nelson, who sent two fat bullocks and a heifer to the Sydney Royal Show, was awarded two second prizes. The cattle had a rough passage across. The Minister for Agriculture states that the Department intends establishing an Ayrshire herd at the State farm at Moumahaki. . Mr. Sidney Humphries, one of the leading '.Hour-millers of Bristol, England, ifl reported ..to have.said tnat, wneat was shipped direct to that port, the consignments would .- make better prices- than are procurable; in London. Bristol has a very-large area of distribution.'

.-.Aii jAustralian writer says:—"An. important. ! tiling that buyers overlook is the number 1 of" , teats '6ii a v 'sb'wi'Siie should ■have'at? Toast twelve,'-rind'.fourteen are better, because if she'is a good breeder all will be needed to take care of a large :litter of, pigs." •/,■ .-•:■■ ■'-■-. .The grand champion at the Interna-.tiqna-l [liivei (Stock lEshibitioa-in Washington -was Shamrock -2nd.-- Shamrock 2nd was. caLved •on January 10, 1910. His weights ; from May 1,1919,. to November 20, ; follow:—May 1, i) 46 pounds; June' 1, ■461; July .1,.589; August 1,. 700j September. ,1, 822;'.0ct0ber.,1,. 911; November 1, 1060, and on November 20,' he weighed 1130.pounds. After the exhibition Shamrock 2nd was bought at auction at a price leckoned at the rate of IDjd. per ,Ib. A good deal of wheat is going out of the Ueraldine district. During tho last two days of last week one firm alone sent away lour thousand .sacks. The .Wheat is benij shipped at ,Tiu)&ru-fqr-London. -..-, The Tasmanian dairy.''and- pig experts are.to visit the Sydney Boyal Sliow. this week to learn how. the dairy and pig industry is-being carried on in that State. - .Writing- of in the Levin district, tho "Chronicle , . , says that a field, was sown-in "lint on..Mr. J. K. M'Donald's farm at Heatherlea, by Mr. J. Cameron.' The crop grew and developed astonishingly well, and the opinion of Mr. Cameron is that the lint proved itself to be one of the field products "most easy of cultivation that he has had -experience of. The linseed was threshed out of the stooks, with flails-, somo two months ago, and now it only needs a filial cleait-up with, fanning machine to make it ready for the market. The crop is certain to teturn a • highly prbfi table revenue in comparison to expenditure." ~,.A--; correspondent .-states that a:Grey- . towii fruitgrower who gets his fruit trees principally from Australia contends that the.-e importations.are hardier than the New Zealand-grown trees. The supply of milk at the Kaiparoro Cheese Factory is keeping up fairly well', on- present indications the factory will run, till, the end of May, states an exchange. : A farmers , party from Eltham will probably visit the State Farm at Moumahaki on April 24. A green aphis has attacked the silver birch trees this season in the Forest Department's plantations at Hanmer Springs (our Christchurch correspondent telegraphs). Beyond defoliating the attacked trees a little, no harm has been done. It was noticed in Canterbury last year that a woolly fungus, which generally attacks the. species, has also been noticed on the Austrian pine. It does not do Serious harm in a plantation thongh the old trees' attacked may die. •■