GLEANINGS

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 6176, 6 April 1907, Page 3

GLEANINGS

MV A. France, of Taikorca, has instated a ITarftnctt milking machine. Local potatoes are still coming into the Wellington market in a diseased condition. Recent favourable weather conditions have caused the potato blight to appear in crops on the Wairau Plains, says the ‘"Marlborough Express/' During the past seven months 87,793 boxes of butter and 36,119 cases of cheese have passed through the Pa-tea grading stores, estimated at a total value of £313,054. t tho opinion of Mr T. W. Kirk, Government Biologist, no more danger is to bo apprehended from the fruit fly this year, but a sharp lookout will have to be kept next year to prevent its encroachment. I'hero is at present in Wellington probably the most valuable collection of Australian Merinos which has ever left the Commonwealth. It consists of six ranis, nine ewes, and a rani lamb, and the purchase price of the sixteen sheep was just on £6OOO. They have Ijcmi selected from some of the best flocks in -Australia, the ewes and t\Vo of the ranis being from J. S. Horsfall's famous AVidgiowa flock, which has a strong strain of A'ermont (American) blood in it. All the sheep are the property of one purchaser, an Argentine estancicro, who is personally supervising their shipment. In describing the work of a prizewinner in tho ••'■Sydney Horning Herald’' farm competitions in protecting a river bank from erosion, tho •■Herald” •states that after the farmer had constructed a stone wall he planted buffalo grass along a strip ten or twelve feet wide on the edge of the bank. This has in a few years grown so profusely as to make a capital binding, and the banks are now as safe there as rvhere tho stone wall was laid. Once the eating away was arrested a vigorous growth of rushes appeared, and the banks now look right for all time. Air H. Clifton, Director of Experimental Stations, has expressed himself as highly gratified at tho success of the banners’ Lnion excursion to Moumohaki Experimental Station recently. Air Clifton would like to see small committees of farmers from different districts visiting the farm at frequent intervals and spend a quiet day there, to investigate the expert, ments in progress and discuss matters with tho farm manager. Ah- Clifton is anxious that members of tho farming community should keep in close touch with tho experiments being there conducted for their benefit, so that the benefits of the station work may bo diffused as widely as possible.