FARMING NEWS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 196, 20 July 1937, Page 4

FARMING NEWS.

RURAL RAKINGS. That the value of manure applied to increase the carrying capacity of land and the value of subdivisions! fencing should bo capitalised and added to tho improvements, not to the unimproved value, in valuing land for rating and land tax purposes, was a remit submitted to the annual conference of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union at Wellington last week. Alhough frosts some time ago checked the pastures somewhat harshly in the Apiti area, the fine weather of late has been of remarkable benefit, a ‘‘Standard” reporter was told yesterday, and, speaking generally, the farming outlook there in regard to the season was very good. Tho wqrst weather was not expected usually until August, but no great inroads had yet been made on supplementary winter feeds and ill some oases it had been found that ordinary requirements might not be called .on this vear.

A draft of 116 chiller steers, reared on the Government's station at Galatea, was sold last week for £ll 10s a head net on tho station. The . draft will he sent 'to Auckland immediately, and will he killed in time for shipment to England this week. The draft is the first of a lino of 600 chillers which the management committee of the Galatea station proposes to se!( for export before tho end of September.

The markets generally maintain their steady trend and unless more heavily burdened should not he in danger cf decline, says a Waikato report. Dairy rejects and replacements constitute tho hulk of the business in the cattish ranch, and for both these great purchasing ongorncSs is being displayed. Sheep, though moiicrately firm, are not as keenly pursued as a year ago, in fact the demand for ewes in iamb that was so confidently anticipated from dairymen proves to have, boon largely fanciful. _ It may he said, however, that the class of sheep customarily available- is not such as to create undue excitement.

The early ’nineties of last century art, recalled by an Order-in-Council published in the New Zealand Gazette. This order revokes regulations made in 1893 giving power to the authorities tc take action to deal with swine fever in the event of an outbreak occurring, and re-enacts them on a wider basis so that they can he applied to cover all diseases of live stock for which drastic and immediate measures are necessary to stamp them out. Incidentally, the 1893 regulations were invoked to deni with the outbreak of swino fever at Johnsonvillo. a few years ago. The remarkable clearance of rehhits in the hilly country beyond MorriiiSvillo during the past fou'r years is indicated by the progress made bv tho Kiwitahi Rabbit Board, formed in 1933 with an area of 38,090 acres to administer. At its July meeting the hoard adopted the classification made by its inspector, and gave notice to strike a rate of id per aero on 11,385 acres classed as free from rabbits, and IRI an acre on the remaining 26.682 acres classed as Slightly iilfgsled. So strict has been the classification this year that the sight of oniy one rabbit or one open burrow on a farm lias been enough to put it out of (he "clean” and into the “slightly infested’’ class. When the hoard started operation? some properties were badly infested with rabbits, but now there are so few rabbits that rabbiting work has been reduced to tho inspector going round with dogs searching for the last survivors of the former rabbit population.