FARMING AND HALF FARMING.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 116, 5 July 1873, Page 7

FARMING AND HALF FARMING.

We have known people ambitious to make money, who would spare no labors to increase their income, and when they had secured it would spend it to mo purpose —waste it; get rid of it they scarcely knew how—and have nothing to show for it. They were good to make money, but could not keep it or use it wall. The only good they could get of their money was the donbtful good of having it pass through their hands. There are many people of this stamp; they can get business and do it; can earn great wages; drive and push through any amount of toil ; making long and close calculations; talk largely and well enough about business; but cannot increase their capital. Their purse will not hold-money —it leaks; it seems like the fabled pit, without a bottom ; or, like the miller’s dam, which, whether it rained much or little, would hold no water; or most likely they have no purse. Their money burns the pockets and hands; they bave it spent before it is got, or plans on hand for its disposal. Much like this class of people are many farmers — they can raise good crops, but cannot make them pay; they neglect their fences, and the cattle break in justs before harvest, or if they get a good crop, they have no place to secure it; fine

fields of hay and grain, but there are no hams no granaries to keep them ; the fruit trees yield well, hut there are no means for preserving the fruit, and it goes to waste ; the root crops are good, but the frost and winter destroy them because they cannot bear everything; the farming implements rot more than they -wear, because the rain and sun are daily pelting and scorching them ; the cows give good milk, but the want of daily appliances makes the milk of but little value ; the pigs are in the corncrib ; the sheep are in the garden ; the kitchen has no wood, hut lives from hand to mouth; the house has no cellar ; the water is far away. Everything works the wrong way ; there is much done, hut little saved. When spring comes everything is gone ; seeds of all kinds must be bought ; the rotten utensils replaced by new ; the broken down fences made over ; the peeled and browsed fruit trees replaced by new and young ones ; and a world of labor spent to get the farm into working order. So it goes on year after year ; and all the difficlty lies in the want of order and taste in that style of farming. No man of order and taste will see gates hangon one hinge, fences reeling, everything looking like old chaos or young ruin ; ,men of taste will husband well their farms, and men of real farming skill will have arrangements for making the most of all they have got, for saving or marketing that nothing be lost. It is the farmers’ losses that keep them back, and the most of their own losses are by their own nogligence or want of skill. There is much half-farming ; they waste a good deal of labor and time. The art of keeping everything in order lies in having a place for everything, and putting everything in its place when used ; in making repairs when needed ; in always putting odd moments of time, rainy days, &c., to making improvements, arranging con veniences, and in getting ready for the season’s active labors. Let all half-far-mers mend their ways as fast as possible, so they will mend their fortunes and their temporal interests.

The Poverty Bay settlers are complaining very bitterly of the dearth of labor and the continued increase in the rate of wages. The e 4 Wanganui Chronicle” says that many of the landowners and occupiers along the coast of that district are sorely troubled by the stealthy yet rapid encroachments of the sand, which, during high winds, is carried farther and farther inland to the destruction of large tracts of pasturage. On cutting open the stomach of a horse at Sperne, near Driffield, a quantity of gravel was found, and a silver shilling of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, hearing the date 1573, was found embedded in the coat of the stomach. It is in good preservation, and has a good profile of the “Maiden Queen ” on one side, and the royal arms on the other. The “ North China Herald,” of the 27th February, states that there is a great commotion at Yeddo among silkworm-egg dealers. Some 300 of the most prominent producers of the interior, who have been known to become wealthy through the trade during the past season, having been arrested, and are under examination for forging the Government stamp necessary to be attached to all the spring eggs intended for the foreign market. A Peak Downs correspondent of a Rockhampton paper gives the following account of the effect on a camp of blacks of the late eclipse of the moon : —The moon rose on one of those fantastic scenes common in the bush of Australia —a grand fete at the blacks’ camp. The young bloods —the dancers of this goodly company—were dressed and painted in the full-dress adopted by one of their ancestors, so scant as to make a ballet-girl envious, the old ladies and gentlemen discoursing harmonious music. The dance became more exciting, and the dulcet strains louder ; the dust and flames rose high to heaven, when, lo ! what stops this mirth ? It is the cry, “ Moon tumble down !” All eyes are for the moment raised to the darkened moon, and then, forgetful of the already prepared sumptuous repast, of their worldly possessions, and of their ever-attendant war instruments, away scamper the motley festive party over the hills and through the scrub, regardless of all obstacles, and with but one object in view—to get at the back of the moon, that as it “tumbled down’ they might not be under. On, on, they sped, to the east, with the cry, “ The moon take the hindmost.”

The “Melbourne Herald,” a most unfortunate journal (financially) since its birth, has been once more announced for sale ; but an injunction to prevent it lias been applied for. The injunction was granted.