NEW PLYMOUTH.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XIII, Issue 958, 2 September 1856, Page 3

NEW PLYMOUTH.

By the arrival, on Saturday, of the overland mail, we liave received the Taranaki 'Herald' of the lGth August. No reference is made to the state of the Native question. The effect of the financial arrangements of the GoYernment, as regards New Plymouth, is relerred to in the following terms : — " It will be in the recollection of our readers that the •original proposition of the ministerial statement was, that, until the sum of £20,000 shall have been paid to the Province of New Plymouth for the purchase of land from the Natives, the Colony should guarantee to it an annual revenue of not less than £4000. Upon this proposition it was understood that an amendment, concurred in by all the members for New Plymouth, had been moved, to the effect that, until the said sum of £20,000 shall have been paid for the purpose before stated, the Colony should guarantee the gross proceeds of the Land Sales of the Province be not less than £2200 in any year. This statement is now confirmed. The opinion has been pretty generally held that this alteration, regard being had to the imminent probability of a failing Customs revenue for the next twelve months, would place the financial resources of the Pr.ovince in a worse situation than if the original proposition had been permitted to pass ; and such, in all probability, will be the case for the next twelve months. True, the depression New Plymouth is suffering equally with all the other Provinces, will no doubt, after a. short interval,, pass away ; and that, regard being had to the very slender chance of any early important acquisition of land, it may have been wise to seek to confine the proffered guarantee to the Land Fund alone, so that the benefits to be derived from a return to a more flourishing state of the general revenue might be secured to the Province, leaving the guarantee an enduring incitement on the government to busy itself about new purchases of land, may^e admitted, and that the inconvenience of a temporary crippled finance might well be submitted to for a few months for that permanently important object : still we cannot but consider that the Province has been scurvily dealt with in these new arrangements. The Assembly has been prodigal of wordy sympathy, but '"'soft words butter no parsnips," and we are unwillingly drawn to the conclusion that there is no advantage, but, on the. contrary, much loss and embarrassment to accrue to the Province from the change that has been accomplished from the rule laid down in the Constitution Act in relation to th.c distribution of the Land Fund of the Colony." The following letter, to the editor of the 'Herald,' dated Hurdon Farm, 13th August, and signed P. Elliot, may possess interest to our agricultural readers : — " Sir, — Observing Mr Tates experiment on a crop of Swedish turnips with guano, published in your last paper, I wish to give you mine with the sheep fold, which is at present more com- at-able with us, and in my opinion, equally certain and efficacious. In 1855, about the middle of November, I put m a crop of Swedish turnips in oat stubble, which had been three times ploughed, and well folded. The result was proved by Mr. Stephenson Smith and myself to be 52 tons 1 4 cwt.— with tops and bottoms off— per acre. My crop this year I have not tried, but it was managed in the same way, and sown the last day of November, and I weighed one, out of mere curiosity, and found it, with top and bottom off, Silts.— and this was one of many of the same size."