AGRICULTURAL.
"We have been again favored with a genial rain which will be of great benefit in maturing the oat crop— both filling the grain and ripening it more rapidly. Hay will likely be somewhat starved unless we have some days fair weather to get together what is cut. Wheat is looking very well, and there will be some very heavy crops in the district, but less rain would be more suitable for this cereal. Harvest has commenced in some places as we have observed both oats and barley in stack, and in about a week it will be general. As it is upon the good harvesting of our wheat crop that we have to depend for the condition of tho flour produced, we would earnestly press upon our farming friends the necessity of attending most paiticularly to the bindiDgand stacking of their wheat. Do not allow sheaves to be more than nine inches through by the band, and if cut with the sickle there should invariably be two sheaves as a road or gap to the stack, and there need be no fear of letting it remain on the field until it is thoroughly dry. "We have ourselves s^en farmers so totally regardless of their own interest*! as to allow men to tie up sheaves from fifteen to eighteen inches through, and if these sheaves get wet, t!iey must either be untied and laid out to dry or half the wheat will be spoiled. A very simple way of tosting the sheaves is to take a piece of fencing whe and bend an eye on one end for the hand, and sharpen the other end to get through the sheaf ; from the eye to the end should be nine inches, and if the point can be seen when thrust through the sheaf at the b.ind, it will be of the proper size. In consequence of the fine rains feed for stock is abundant, and the farmer who has land to break up should not lose such a favorable time for that purpose. In adjoining provinces we hear of failure in the crops, but we presume only partial. In the Australian Colonies there are great fears that the wheat crop will not be anything near the average.
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Bibliographic details
North Otago Times, Volume III, Issue 47, 12 January 1865, Page 2
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377AGRICULTURAL. North Otago Times, Volume III, Issue 47, 12 January 1865, Page 2
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