FARMING NEWS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 74, 24 February 1938, Page 5

FARMING NEWS.

RURAL RAKINGS. With so much fino weather of late, two largo crops of roots have been practically deslroyed by the white butterfly in the Halcombc district. Tho second Wanganui wool sale of tho current season will be held on Friday, when approximately 22,130 bales will be offered. The sale was originally scheduled to start at 2.30 p.m;, but to meet the convenience of buyers it is now timed to begin at 7 a.m. At the first sale on January 20, approximately 30,296 bales were catalogued, and the limit for Friday's sale was fixed at 28,000.

Header harvesting in the Ashburton county has almost been completed, but there is a good deal of wheat in stook still to be threshed. Samples submitted to the officer of the Wheat Research Institute at Ashburton at the beginning of last week passed the moisture test satisfactorily, butowing to the showers and early morning fogs of the last few days, samples sent in recently were in only fair condition. More than 600 samples have been tested since tho station''opened a few weeks ago, and it is expected that most of the testing will have been completed within a fortnight,.

Based on private experiments which have been conducted in Victoria, New South Wales, and South Australia, and quite independent work by the Melbourne University in Victoria, and the Waite Institute in South Australia, tne idea of using nitrogen in cereal growing areas where the rainfall is better than 17in annually has caught on, and in the. year just closed record sales of sulphate of ammonia have been reported. Rates of pay for harvesters are causing some trouble in Otago country districts, where, it is reported, harvesters are making an attempt to force employers to pay increased wages. The rate of 2s an hour and found, which was paid to harvesters previously, was not altered when the increase was ] made in the weekly rate for agricul-1 tural workers on November 1.- It is pointed out that the harvesters are confusing the rates with those of threshing mill workers who come .under a different award and are paid ‘2s 2d an hour.