COUNTRY NEWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVI, Issue 9255, 8 January 1889, Page 3

COUNTRY NEWS.

[from our own correspondents.] Hamilton, Monday. , The weather has been most tantilisiugi. Rain is urgently needed for the potato a»:d fruit crops,- and for the grass, indeed "the two former will suffer severely unless rain i falls early. Much of the wheat, though -well headed is light in the straw, and thia also is the case with much of the oat crop. A foot race of a mile, three times'r ound the Oval, on bydney Square, took place,on Saturday evening, between the winners of the mile race at the Claudeiands 'and at the Sydney Square Athletic sports,, w hich were held at those places on Boxing Tj av Bowen the winner at the Sydney sports, waß . the favourite. The match w ?tS for £5 a-side. Both men ran together for., the tirat two rounds but it was easy tt, S ee that Hammond,the Claudelands chair ipion, was severely taxing himself. When a romd o y a the third lap, Bowen pr<, t on a spurt, and despite Hammonds exertions, passed him easily, and half way to and Hammond threw up the sponge, leavxir g the race to Ms opponent. r ti 6 ; Hamilton S" >Pe wine made last year, though comparatively new, is coming into general favour, anr i wi n effec t xnuchin the cause of temperance if it replaces the ordinal y whisky-oriu kmg , especially in summer. Mr. LeQuesne deceived an order last week from a Cambridge house for a hogshead at a good remunerative prict for wine in bulk. Several settle rs are i ayinK themselves out for ?™ri tlle vine on a larger scale, in plotsof irom iidii-ar to two acres in extent, and wh-in tnesr j come into bearing the industry will recer ,r e an impetus which will push it on into / i leadmgjposition amongst the Waikato Products. The vine bears freely here jn£ °P en & ir in nine seasons out of ten, , e M nothin g wanted but the attempt «> m * ,ke it so, to enable W T aikato to become a wine-producing district, and to keep v-r with cheap grapes. The -id chiefly grown now in Waikato is the o avck Hamburg, a good grape and a free 'oearer, out amongst those being now planted ' for wine purposes are the Chasselas, the -"■okay, the St. Jean, the Reisling, and the white Hermitage. Mr. Mason, nurseryman, of Claudelands, will have at least two tons of grapes for sale this year. Though they can be and are produced upon standard vines grown in the gooseberry bush fashion, Mr. Mason for various reasons prefers growing them under cover, not necessarily glass, though in his glass houses the grapes are much larger than m the others, a fortnight ago being as large as peas, while those in the scrim covered frames were then little forwarder than those grown in the open air. Still, he finds that a scrim roof saves the vines from late frosts and protects the grapes from the vigneron's worst enemies, the small birds. A description of one of Mr. Mason's scrim roofed vineries, which the writer recently inspected, may be of interest. A trench about 4£ feet wide at the top and three feet deep was dug 100 yards in length, the earth thrown out on either side and spread evenly back. The vines were then planted in. rows on the surface of the ground on either side the trench, about three feet back from its edge, and about two feet from each other in either row. Ordinary seven foot; purin fencing posts were then just let into the ground outside the line of grape vines on either side, and brought ud at an obtuse angle to a roof tree, meeting above the middle of the trench, so as to serve as rafters for the roof. On the under side of these rafters iron wires were stretched from end to end of the vinery, to which the vines were tied. A roll of scrim drawn along the outside of either side of the roof, completed the vinery. Mr. Mason has allowed two branches to strike from near the collar of the tree, and these are trained up to the centre of trie roof. Though only three-year-old vines, black Hamburgs, these main shoots were covered with laterals carrying a vast number of branches. The vinery is entered at either end, and a man walking up to the trench can pinch back or work at the growing vines on either side of the roof. To carry off surplus water either in winter, or from syringing the vines in summer, a small gutter about six inches wide and four inches deep is left on either side the bottom of the trench.

_ Kihikihi, Monday. lne work of rabbit destruction is still being;vigorously carried on by the natives in the King country, and but for the action taken by the Government rabbits would become as great a pest in the King country as they are in the South. For the month of December the rabbit inspectors paid the natives no less a sum than £187 10s, being at the rate of 3d each for 15,000 skins. A large number of skins are, it is said, not yet sent in from the neighbourhood of Otorohanga. and about Te Kooti's settlement. A gentleman well acquainted with the country tells me that the rabbits seem quite as nnmerous as ever despite the killing of an average of aC least 10,000 per month, and gives it as his opinion that the natives are fairly doing their best to kill' them off, as they are anxious ix. make money while they can, believing that the Government will not long continue b give a premium for rabbit skins.