FARM NOTES.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XX, Issue 2395, 7 April 1893, Page 4

FARM NOTES.

Oaty.in Patea district are taming out well j 4i bushels of good oats per arira is being threshed. i Settlers oan only get 5d per 1b from storekeepers just now for butter. Theße prices are not likely to harden until - roada, bridges, and dairy factory dams are put in order. A good many settlers, however, have arranged terms {or the sale of the butter all the year round-at good prices. „_ A writer in the Australasian attributes brittle hoofs in horses not to continuous dry or wet weather, but from constant ohange from wet to dry. On this Coast horses have very brittle hoofs. An , equal part of,tar,and whale-oil or lard is reco-n mended to be used every other day, thuß keeping the hoofs elastic '■> Thiß is a good time to buy pigs, and top off for bacon. Damaged wheat is plentiful, and cheap. Hawera Borough has one dairy cow for every ten of its population. Norhas one to every four, Alton, better known as the cocksfoot city, only turned out 8,425 bushels of cocksfoot this year, as against 13,128 bushels last year. 1 There is an increase of 1,500 acres of surface-sown grass in Patea West ,road district this year. • ' ' Fourteen Wairarana settlers have been fined £1 each for exposing for sale sheep infected with lice. Waitara correspondent writes that two • separators are in full swing at Tikorangi besides the factory, and that Lepperton Factory is turning out a snlendid article. "Ohaffoutting societies are quite modern institutions. The one thus named at Geelong is, we are disposed to believe, unique in character, Whilst the headquarters are at Geelong, branches have been established at Melbourne, and during the last half-year a branch has been opened at Brighton. The gross output for the last half-year, as stated at the third half-yearly meeting, held recently, was £10,017 16s 7d., or nearly £1,200 in advance of the previous halfyear. A dividend of 8 per cent, was declared, also a bonus of 6d. in the £ in agreement with Rule 119 (which includes customers), leaving a substantial balance and a sum to go to a special reserve fund. The novel point is the sharing of the profits with the customers. Although prizes have been offered in Victoria for a good potato-digging machine, it seems that a thoroughly ' effective implement has yet to be invented. The trials held under the auspices of the West Bonrke Agricultural Society have failed to bring to the fore a machine that has fully catisfied the judges. The society is, therefore, offering sums of £7 and £3 for first and second prizes for potato-diggers to be tried next April or May. There are 865£ acres of oats in Hawera riding, estimated to yield 31,775 bushels; some lots are threshing out 10 or more bushels per acre than estimated. Hawera ridiDg of County has 6341 head of horned cattle, 2017 are breeding cows. There are in Hawera riding 11,461ac. of surfaoesown land; 8726 acres of land ploughed and sown down to approved / English grasses. The returns for "wheat and oats round here (writes 6ur Waitara correspondent) are now beginning to come in ; in fact most of it ia threshed. Wheat pans v out very pootly, not ntote than 15 bußhela "' in most cases. Oats, with the exception of one crop on the Waihi block destroyed by caterpillars, threshed out well —perhaps 40 bushels would be about the mark. Two hundred and six tons of potatoes are the total estimate of Hawera riding, only a decent yield of a 20-acre paddook. Wheat is not sown very extensively; 249! acres, estimated to yield 9080 bushels, won't reach that amount by 2000 bushels. This is for Hawera riding, or, to give a better idea to readers, that portion of county lying between Tongahoe and Waingongoro rivers, and extending fcaok to the Austin road, but not including Normanby township. There are 254 acrea cut for bay this year in same riding, and about 1200 tons of ensilage provided for winter use. This is a step in right direction. Potatoes (our Waitara correspondent writes) are good about Huirangi and Tikorangi way. Mr West, of the latter block, has been digging them since midwinter. They are worth £5 a ton in New Plymouth, and farmers would do well to avoid rushing them into the market even at that price, as I fancy they will go up soon. The Minister cf Agriculture is offering a bonus of £250 for a means of eradicating the Galifornian ihiatlei Cnieus lanceolotus). Applications must be sent in cot later than Ist June, 1893. The Government shall appoint a committee of three or more persons, under whoße instructions and before whom all tests shall be carried through. The proposed bonus, or any part thereof, will not be paid until the proposed remedy has been proved effectual. There are evidently worse places io the world for poultry-raisers tban New Zealand, the following taken from the Australasian speaks for itself: —"ln the South Warragul locality, for instanoe, foxes have recently become so numerous that several farmers have had their poultry yards devastated, and in two or three cases the breeders have become so discouraged that they have given np the business altogether. At the last Warragul market the owner of a lot of valuable turkeys sacrificed them at a ridioulous figure rather than keep them any longer for, foxes to devour, and at the council meeting this week the secretary reported that Buob a large number of skins were brought in that he recommended that it should be specified that the skins must belong to foxes at least three months old, and must be properly dried by the person claiming the reward, so as to render them marketable and enable the council to secure some return for its outlay. The council gives a bonus of 10s per skin, and as the skins are at present brought of all ages and in all conditions, the secretary's suggestion was at once adopted." Smuggling stock across tbe border from Gippsland to New South Wales is very rife. One station owner was recently fined £100 above tbe usual tax, yet it is calculated that hundreds of cattle are Btauggle"d across the border, despite the vigilance of the custom officials.