FARMS AND FARMERS

Greymouth Evening Star, 28 June 1921, Page 8

FARMS AND FARMERS

NEWS FROM ALL QUARTERS. (By “Rouseabout.”) (Contributions on district farming topics are invited lor publication in this column, which will appear every Tuesday.) A leading Marlborough farmer was asked by an “Express’’ representative whether much wheat was being sown in Marlborough this season. “I should say five times as much as last year,” was the reply. There has been an exhaustive demand on the supply of seed.

Account sales reaching the Wairarapa regarding wool shipped to London show that the returns compare very unfavourably with those of wool sold in Wellington.

The past season has been a record one in the history of the Rongotea Co-operative Dairy Company both as regards output and the price obtained. The Company has already manufactured 300 tons of butter, against 204 tons for last year, and 265 tons in the previous record year of 1915.

Germany is buying seed potatoes freely in England. The steamer Golfer of Methil sailed for Bremen with 300 tons of seed potatoes on 7th April. A second cargo follows with the Rattray Head, and two other cargoes are also booked, the whole amounting to about 900 tons. Ihe potatoes are being sent to the ordei of the British Relief Credit Committee. The South Americans want money just as much as we do, and with no limits to harass them, they will sacrifice much of their wool at prices considerably below the cost of production. Probably: the only way in which we can meet them is by so undervaluing our inferior wool that the limits fixed by the Bawra will in the end really represent almost “giving away prices. An American farmer, writing to a Feilding stud breeder, states that no-

body made money .in the sheep business in America last year. Practically everyone lost money, and very many wealthy men who were engaged in the sheep business two or three years ago are now bankrupt. It is impossible, writes the American, to raise sheep in that country in competition with wool grown from Australia or mutton lambs from New Zealand. A reasonable tariff would doubtless give enough protection to keep them in the game, and allow the sheep men to buy stud rams and perhaps a few ewes from New Zealand. The unbeaten Jersey bull, Remarkable of Meadowbrook, has been purchased by Dr. H. O. Washbourn, of Richmond (Nelson), i His record of 21 championships is probably unique in the Dominion. He is bred in e nurple,” his sire being the noted Lord Twylish, -who was twice champion oi Jersey Island, five times champion at Melbourne Show, and tho winner of

t'ii New Zealand championships, out of Queen of the Meadows, winner of four first prizes and resrve championship prizes. His grandsire is Raleigh, the sire of 22 tested daughters which averaged 171 b butler-fat for seven days. The great grandsire is Eminent, the first bull to sell for £2OOO or over, and the sire of 66 tested daughters. The advent of this noted sire should give a fillip t) the Jersey hived in the Nelsen district. When Messrs Ernest Short, of Feilding, and L. T. McLean, were touring in the United States last year they saw at a farm near Seattle. Washington State, a Holstein cow which was being tested for a world's record for one year's production. Mr. Short has just received from a friend in America a letter stating that the cow produced 1448.691bs of butter in 365 <lays, being 401bs. greater than her nearest competitor.

Mention was made soiup time ago • of a ewe giving birth to a lamb bearing a station earmark. A correspondent to the Auckland Star gives an instance of a much more unusual oc- ' currence in which the earmarks of a ‘ cow were transmitted to the third generation, an occurrence which he savs he can vouch for. He says:

“Some years ago, while farming on tho Ea-t Coast-, my father imported a Jersey cow from Auckland. Ihe cow gave birth 16 a heifer calf bearing her own earmarks. This heifer in due course produced an earmarked heifer calf. Later, while visiting the farmer to whom the last-mentioned beast had been sold, out of curiosity to see how far this handing down of-marks would go, I asked to be shown her first calf, wiriclr proved to be yet another heifer bearing her mother’s earmark. Old farmers have never heard of such a case. Giving evidence before a Select Committee at Lismore (New South Wales) a few days ago a- dairyman submitted returns showing that the average production of his pure-bred herd of Illawarras had been gradually rarsecfrom 2451 b of butter in 1917 Jo 3421 b. in 1920, which was partly the result o persistent herd-testing.