FARM NOTES FROM ENGLAND.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10477, 24 June 1897, Page 3

FARM NOTES FROM ENGLAND.

[IT 008 ESGUSH AGBIOUIiTOHAL COBBESFONDEST.] London, April 30. AFTER THE DELUGE. We are Almost afraid to hope that) we have at last come to the end of oar prolonged period of tribulation, considerably over eight months of rainy or damp weather. It is not too much to say that there was not a single fine week in the whole of that dreary time. A week without rain there was on two or three occasions; bat then there was either fog or orercaab sky, and hardly any sunshine. It has been the longest period of almost constantly winter weather that has occurred within the memory of the present writer. _ It spoilt the sowing of winter and spring crops alike; and, unless I am very much mistaken, it has done more than a heavy crop would do to drain away the fertility of the soil. There may be a good ha; crop, and probably will be, if we do nob get a drought after the flood ; but there is no hope whatever of even an average corn harvest. More than half the wheat crop is thin and weak, and the spring corn was put in so badly that ill cannot come up to the mark. A warm May with alternate sunshine and showers would do a great deal to bring the land into a better condition, but either a very dry or a wet season would be fatal. When our prevailing heavy soils cannot be properly cultivated at sowing time, they will not stand either much rain or none at all for any considerable spell. This season they were extremely wet internally when sown, and indeed barely dry on the surface, and since the sowing they have been swamped with rain. With much dry weather they would become as hard as a road, while a web May would render all crops unhealthy. Mangolds have been sown as badly as corn, while the cultivation of the land for swedes was postponed in many districts till the present week. Potatoes have been put in under difficulties, and into so wet a seed-bed that they will be extremely likely to develop disease early. Altogether the spring, up to the middle of last week, has been a detestable one, and the farm outlook is about as dreary as I have ever known it to be.

MORE ABOUT THE MEAT-MARKING

BILL. In my last letter I briefly described the Agricultural Produce (Marks) Bill, read a second time recently in the House of Commons, and referred to a select committee. I return to the subject, however, in order to call the attention of the New Zealand Government to a very serious fault in the measure, and one against which both New Zealand and Australia should protest vigorously. It is not to the marking of imported meat that New Zealand has any reason to object. On the contrary, the only fear on her account is that there will not be marking enough—that is, not the marking of the place of origin, which, as I urged in my last letter, it would be to the interest of the colony which sends us the best frozen mutton to secure. The great fault of the Bill is that of proposing, in effect, to put a high premium upon the importation of meat imported alive, and a corresponding penalty upon that of meat imported dead. How this is may be easily explained. The Bill requires the marking of all " foreign meat," and prohibits its sale as " British or Irish." Now, in the last clause, " foreign meat" is defined as any meat imported " from any country or place beyond the limits of Great Britain and Ireland," while " British or Irish meat" is defined as "meat killed within the United Kingdom." In other words, all imported dead meat is treated as foreign, while all meat imported alive is regarded as home-grown. It follows that, while any person who sells the former must register himself as a seller of foreign meat, and take care nob to have any on his premises that is not branded, there is no need to register or to brand in the case of the sale of meat imported alive. Readers will readily imagine what the results of this abominable distinction will be if it should become law, Meat imported alive will for the first time be British meat according to law; and any meat-seller will be authorised to sell it as prime British, without registering and without) branding. This will be so profitable,a business that there will be a great increase in the demand for meat imported alive. On the other hand, as every butcher who sells meat imported dead will have to place his name on a public register and to have it all branded, under a penalty of not over £5 for a first, or £20 for a second offence, there will be a serious discouragement to the sale of such meat, and the demand for it will fall off to a great extent. The butchers who sell the former class of meat will be regarded as sellers of British meat only, and customers will flock to their shops, while, those who sell the latter will be regarded with suspicion as men likely to palm off imported meat upon their customers as British. Now, by far the greater part of the meat we import alive comes from the United States and Argentina, while a very large proportion of the dead meat comes from New Zealand and Australia. Therefore, this ill-considored and short-sighted measure would handicap our own colonies to the enormous advantage of foreign countries. There was no intention on the part of the framers of the Bill, I feel certain, to produce these results;. but, through their thoughtless blundering, they have so drawn it up that it will have the results described unless it is amended. I have called attention to this intolerable fault in the Bill in some influential English papers, and I shall take care that the matter is brought to the notice of the Agents-General for New Zealand and the Australian colonies. There is nob the slightest) excuse for the discrimination between moat imported in carcase form and meat imported alive, unless, indeed, in order to favour the former instead of the latter, because the traffic in ib is more humane and more economical alike than the trade in lire stock from distant countries. Now that all imported cattle and sheep must be slaughtered at the few specified porta at which they are allowed to be landed, nothing could be easier than to have their carcases branded in as many parts as may be deemed necessary before being removed from the slaughterhouses. It was different when Canadian and other store cattle could be fed in England or Scotland, for then the meat was at least i partly " made in Great Britain." Now it is entirely foreign, and yet it is proposed in the Bill to treat such meat as British, while treating New Zealand and Australian meat as foreign. The Bill must be either amended or ended. I

LAST YEAR'S SHORTHORN SALES. Thornton's Circular gives a summary of Shorthorn sales in 1896, showing that 1703 animal: realised £49,093 5a 6d, or an average of £28 16s 6d each. In the spring and summer prices were depressed by drought, and most of the sales were postponed accordingly, but after July there was a brisk revival of business. The extraordinary demand for bulls to go to South America was the most remarkable feature of the year's business, about 700 having been shipped to Argentina. Very few were exported elsewhere, demand in the United [States, Canada, and Australia being almost extinct, while Europe and Sooth Africa took only a trifling number. A great auctioneer is apt to be sanguine, and the statement that the year closed under more favourable circumstances than bad prevailed for some time before might be questioned in some quarters; but ib was justified by the improved prospects for the safe breeding of cattle produced by the passing of the Act of last session making the slaughter of imported animals at the ports of landing a fixed rule.'