FARM TOPICS

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1648, 30 September 1903, Page 66

FARM TOPICS

Tli 9 farmers of Japan raise, perhaps, the heaviest crops known to the world, •UPd -ffito 'superior productiveness of the smaller lots of land held*by peasant proprietors will be acknowledged from the fact that, with but 11 million acres of cultivated land, 34J million people are fed and clothed for the greater part, and still 1' able to export 25 millions of tea, 3 ’million pounds of raw silk, and 35 millions pounds of rioe.

The imports into Great _ Britain of daily produce and margarine reached Sin 1902 an aggregate value of £311,350, 000, largest sum yet recorded. Twothirds of this group of imports arc made up of butter alone, tire arrivals of the year under review being now valued at £20,527,000. Denmark maintains the leading place in the list, but the second place in the imports of butter i'uuo the United Kingdom is now held by Russia, with an aggregate of nearly 25,000 tons. The French quota, which conies next in magnitude, and which lias been falling off of late, showed seme increase in 1902. The colonial section of blitter supplies proved less in 1902 than in any of the other preceding years, but .the Canadian quota has nearly regained the percentage of the total which it held in 1899. The declining position of Australia as a source of butter supply in the markets of the Mother Country is attributable to the repeated and severe droughts which have checked the agricultural production of the Commonwealth, the receipts last year barely exceeded 4,000 tons, although two years previously nearly 18,000 tons were obtained from this source alone.

The opinion of Mr Schreiner, the South African authority, of a pure-bred Angora, is as follows: —I think it is certain that the original pure-bred white mohair goat was a small, very /.•efined, delicate animal, of great fjeanty, clipping at twelve months! growth of fleece about 21 h to 41b (according to age and sox—kids eonsiderabiy less) of dazzling white, fine, soft.

| silky, very lustrous mohair, curling in • ringlets from lOin to 18m long, with I merely the minimum of oil in its fleece requisite to the growth of hair of the highest excellence, so .small in amount as to be inappreciable to the unskilled observer. It was perfectly clothed in every part; it had short, silky, curjfy hair about the face and down the lower parts of the legs to the hoofs; a soft, silky, curly' “kuif” (tuft on the forehead), and snialjl, thin, light-coloured horns. The ewe was, of course, smaller and finer than the ram, and had only one kid at a birth (of this there is abundant evidence).

The “American Sheep Breeder” for July writes:—-“The sheep shearers are organising, the herders are talking union, the woollen makers and wool buyers are organised, the wool twin© men aro in a trust; every indispensable article used by sheepmen, from the clothes they wear to the foods they consume, is the product of a trust, and only, the woolgrower himself is without the benefits of united action. He i® the sport of all the combinations, the football of politics, the prey of schemes and schemers, and only for its inherent strength his industry would go to pieces in half-a-dozen years. Isn’t it about time for a woolgrowers’ trust, fortified in the union and common interests of the million men who keep sheep and grow wool in the forty-nine states and territories of the American Union?”

Art a meeting of the Auckland provincial executive of the Farmers’ Union, the Stud Bill was read. The list of diseases disqualifying stallions for service was discussed with interest, and it was pointed out that many of the diseases- were easily detected, so that the aid of experts was not needed. The only use of the Bill would he to provide employment for more experts at the expense -of stallion owners, whot were t-o be taxed. It was decided to oppose the Bill. Mr Wylie stated that his branch (Mauku) desired him to express to the Union their opinion that the disease recently reported in that district was -not anthrax. He submitted a report on the subject, which was considered in committee. No action was taken, it being considered that the opinions of the veterinary surgeons placed the matter beyond doubt.'

The North Canterbury Executive of the Farmers’ Union has decided to move strenuously in the direction of getting correct grain returns for Canterbury, and agree to send printed forms to threshing mill-owners to facilitate the registering of tallies. The question of the revaluation of Crown tenants’ land prior to the granting of freehold was brought up, but was held over pending the receipt of reports of the proceedings of the Colonial Council A Chertsey slieepbreeder, Mr Stringfellow, sold a line of Oprriedales to a Gore farmer )ast week, some of the rams fetching 20 guineas each. Messrs Russell and Bignel I’s tender has been accepted for the erection of a grandstand for the Egmont Racing Club on their racecourse, at Haw era, tenders for which were invited by Mr B. G. West, architect, of Palmerston North. New crop Manitoba wheat is now

available for shipment from America, and the New York quotation for No. 1 Hai-d Manioha at the end of last week was 3s lOd per bushel. The previous quotation for old crop was 4s. So far a.s can be inferred from the statistics cabled weekly, and from the reports received by mail, the American wheat crop is hardly turning out so well as was anticipated earlier in the season, although it is still a large one. During the five weeks ending at the close of August, the shipments from Atlantic ports to. Europe amounted to 9,656,000 bushels, against 17,826,000 bushels during the corresponding period of last year, or a. decrease of 8,170,000 bushels. But,, while the shipments have been smaller, the growth in the visible supply has been at a slower rate, the net increase during the five weeks being 1,265, 000 bushels, against an increase of 2,678,000 bushels last year. It is evident that the crop movement is later this season than last. The American visible supply, east of the Rocky Mountains, was estimated last week at 21,558,000 bushels, or an increase of 306,000 bushels since the previous week. At the corresponding date last year it was 32,366,000 bushels.

The Canadian people are very much wroth with their immigration agent in London, for saying that Canada’s butter is so bad that he had to purchase the New Zealand article for use in his own household.