GENERAL ITEMS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1248, 30 January 1896, Page 7

GENERAL ITEMS.

A trial of twiiie-binders took place in Mr Bur'ck's paddock. Mastcrton. the competing machines being the Massey-Harris, for which Messrs Simms and Mowlem are the agents, and the Hornsby, represented by the Masterton Blacksmith Company. The crop operated on was oats, and both machines seemed to perform the work very well. Among the level-headed farmers who watched the contest with that keenness born eof practical experience, om'nion was pretty venly divided as to the merits of the machines. The Admiralty and Naval Departments of Great Britain are making preparations to let large contracts for the purchase of Australian preserved meats. A visitor from the bush district informs me : (writes our Masterton correspondent) that settlement i* progressing rapidly between Eketahuna and Hawera. The season has been, however, unfavourable, as in consequence of the wet weather the burning has not been as successful as it otherwise would have been. The weather, too, has militated against the saving of the grass seed, and it is feared the settlers will not have as good a harvest as they were led to expect from the luxuriance of the grass in the early part of the summer. The pasture land looks excellent, and the quantity of feed is abnormal : in fact, the excessive growth of grass is regarded rather as a disadvantage than otherwise, as the cattle cause much waste by trampling on it, and thereby preventing the growth of the autumn crop. A new road is in course of construction from Hawera to Brownston, and when this is finished it will prove a great convenience to the settlers in that district. The bush is rapidly disappearing before the onward tide of settlement, whilst everywhere there are evident signs that the people are recognising the importance of securing, whilst the opportunities areso fa/ourable, sections of land whereon to make their future homes. There are at present four sawmills at work in Hawera and one at Brownston, the latter boing engaged principally in prt paring sleeperaf or the Eketahuna- Woodville extension line.

The committee »f the Egmont Agricultural and Fastoral Association has resolved that a spring show be held at Hawera. The undermentioned Crown lands are to be open for sale or selection at the Lands and Survey Ofiioe, Wellington, on Tuesday, 25th February :—22,113 acres, part of the Awarua Block, lying easterly from the North Island Main Trunk road and railway line, and divided into 31 soctions, ranging from 200 to 2000 acres eaoh j the northern part lying between the forks of the Moawhango and Rangitikei rivers being approachable from Moawhango, and the southern part, intersected by the Kawhatau River, being approachable from Mangaweka. Six sections ranging from ISS to 45.5 acres in the survey districts of Omahine, Apiti, Mangaone, Mangahaa and Makuri. At a meeting of the shareholders of the Langstone Sheep Medicine Company. Limited, held at their registered offices in Greytown on Friday, it was decided to wind up the Company voluntarily, and Mr Robert Howe, the late secretary, wasi appointed liquidator. Mr J, McKerrow, Land Purchase Inspector has gone to Marlborough in order to inspects several estates in that province which are under offer under the Land for Settlements Act. There aro also some pastoral properties which require adjustment of boundaries and the arrangement of the proper distribution of high and low country before they.,are submitted for fresh leases. From Marlborough Mr McKerrow will proceed through Canterbury. He is expected back about ten days. Lence.