AGRICULTURAL REPORT. Argus Office, Feb 13

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XVII, Issue 1380, 5 March 1861, Page 3

AGRICULTURAL REPORT. Argus Office, Feb 13

We have no change of any importance in the produce market to leport this week. lTlour is in the usual demand in small parcels, without any alteration of puce, and the probabilities of a fall are not so great since it lias become known that much wheat was damaged m this colony and Tasmania by the last lams Samples of wheat have been offeiedmoie freely during the Lvt few days, but many of these were inferior, and millers do not caie to buy any of this grain just now, except what his been secured without injury fiom the wet Any parcels of wheat that are well ripened and quite diy are leadily disposed of at full prices; but those not answering this description will scarcely be looked at The demand foi really sound feed oats continues good, -without any change in formei prices. Theie has been a large supply of hay sent in to market again, and very many loads were unsold to day. The pi ices of last week have been obtained for the best quality, but inferior soarcely has a fked value ; and if the same quantity be sent m for any length of time, a great reduction will have to be submitted to It was hoped that all the worst hay was coming in first, and that by this time some improvement in the general quality would be seen, but the chaiacter of the loads is still the same — not one out of foui being even toleiably free fiom the effects of the broken season Fiom every pait of the country to which the heavy rains of the week befoie last extended we have the same accounts of damage to all the crops not completely secured in stack. The wheat that was in stook has mostly sprouted in the eai, and much of that uncut was beaton to the ground. The unfinished stacks were all wet to the very bottom, and the weather since has not been very favouiable for diying them. From this cause alone many farmeis have suffered seveie loss, and where the rains weie heaviest much damage of other kinds was done besides. Crops and fences were swept away by the tempoiary floods formed in every hollow, even entire stacks going adrift in some instances, to be ledistubuted over the fields ; but the sheaves so injured by the wet and dnt as to be scarcely woith caiting home again In Tasmania, too, there weie some very severe floods, the wops, and in some cases the cattle and sheep as well, being washed off all the alluvial flats near the principal rivers on the noith side of the island. Altogether the mischief done l>y the thiee days' rain was veiy great, and the losses severe to individual fanners, both hore and there. Before then the character of this year's grain did not promise to be very supeiior, but now there is leason to fear that much of it will be scarcely fit for its oidmary and legitimate uses Fortunately all parts of the country were not visited alike by these lams, which appear to have fallen heaviest over a breadth of twenty miles at this side of the Mount Macedon ranges. At detached places, also, the fall was very heavy, while at others the rain was very light. The threshing machines are now busy up the country, wherever the grain is diy enough to be taken from the straw with prudence ; and never before was there so much corn of one kind or other seen at Ballaiat as last week. In fact, all the up- countiy mills, as well as the stoics, are being now rapidly filled with grain.

Abundance op Corn.— Never slnoe Ballarat has been a town has there been such an extraordinary supply of com as during the past week. At the mills there has been a regular scramble amongst tbe bullockdrivers to get first to the oranes, and in some instances loads of wheat were taken in by lamplight. In the market the supply of hay and oats w»s almost as plentiful, but it neatly all found purchasers at an eaily hour.. _ It is a satisfactory evidence of our progiess that this immense supply has been raised in our district, and no less so th*t it has been legitimately disposed of amongst local consumers.' — Ballarat Tunes, Feb. 11.