AGRICULTURAL ITEMS.

Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 1319, 2 August 1880, Page 2

AGRICULTURAL ITEMS.

| In spite of the losses of farmers (says an English paper), it appears that the area of land under cultivation continues to "increase. In Great Britain the area returned as under cultivation has increased by 121,000 acres since 1878, and by 264,000 acres since 1877 ; and the total increase in the 10 years, ending with 1879, is no less than 1,637,000 acres, or about the same area as the whole of Devonshire. Of this increase rather more than two-thirds, or 1,134,000 acres was in England, 228,000 acres in Wales, and 275,000 acres in Scotland. Lord Herries, in a letter to the Times, dwells on the serious condition of the English agricultural industry. He says : —" We hear from all quarters of farms thrown into the hands of their proprietors, of some going out of cultivation. I have heard of a farm offered to a tenant on condition of his paying tithes and rates ; also of a farm hitherto let for 22s per acre now let for Bs. .... There can be no real revival of trade until the agricultural classes have better prospects. There is little probability of the next harvest being even an average harvest, but in any case more than one really good harvest is needed, unless some scheme be found for improving the position of agriculture."

A Pennsylvania farmer, writing to an exchange says :—" I must give my experience in favor of cutting to single eyes, having practised it for a number of years, and I know whereof I speak. Two years ago I had early rose yield at the rate of 488 bushels per acre by cutting to single eyes planted in a moist sandy loam, three inohes deeji and not hilled up. Last year I got two la plume triumph from Mr. Tillinghurst, with a package of other seeds, and cut them to single eyes. There were only 22 eyes in the two. I planted them iu hills, three feet apart, a single eye in a hill, and obtained a very large bushel of large potatoes. In several instances I found three tubers as long and broad as my hand, and about two inches thick, all fastened to one stem, coming from one eye. The potatoes were excellent—better than the early rose—whiter and more mealy when grown side by side." Mr. Mechi is still farming, and though so advanced in years he writes regularly to the papers. The following was written at the end of April A walk over the farm, at the age of 78, on a fine April day, is, to xny mind, a great privilege, for which I feel thankful. It is a walk full of hope and pleasant expectation, for I never saw my wheat more luxuriant in its early growth. Clover, peas, barley, and oats satisfactory. We are mowing some of our Italian rye-grass for our horses. Mangel went in well, so now we have not a single acre to plough, all being cropped as follows :—Wheat, 50 acres ; peas (for picking), 36 acres ; barley, 2Q acres, oats, 6 acres ; red clover, 2Q, aores ; Italian ryegrass, Ist yea,r, 6 acres ; 2nd year, 7 acres; mangel, § aores ; and permanent pasture, § aores. Our severely worked old horses will now get a few weeks' rest on the marshes, where, however, they will not get condition, for these are generally overstocked. Although the horse-hoe has been amply used, there is much handhoeing still to do. We have now 'the cuokoo and nightingale, besides the melodius thrush and blackbird. So far we seem happy as compared with the last melancholy and unprofitable year. Ewes and lambs doing well on Italian rye-gr iss. Some of our small hoggets made 503 by auction at Colchester, out of the wool. Lamb is awfully dear." The fearful mortality of sheep in England has had the effect of directing the attention of scientific and professional men, in all parts of the kingdom, to the subject of fluke and rot. The subject is one of great importance to sheep-owners in this Colony- (says the Queenslander), and its discussion in the Home papers cannot fail to interest us. A smart correspondence has been carried on in the columns of The Times on the subject between some medical gentlemen j but so far the result has been to further verify the truism that doctors differ. A Dr. John Harley, in replying to another medica| gentleman, falls foul of Cobbold and other scientists in these words ; " Mr. Bowich, in common with many scientific men, who ought to know better, assumes the truth of a dogma, propounded many years ago, that the liver fluke must go. through a variety of transformations in the bodies of lower animals (presumably molluscs) in order to fit it for viability and adult development in the bodies of warm-blooded animals. This error may be disproved by any farmer who will take the trouble to feod a new-born lamb with a few flukes taken direct from the body of a recently killed sheep and before they have discharged their eggs ; and keeping the lamb free from further infection for a few weeks, then examine the alimentary canal and liver, when he will find the parasite in increased numbers in the body of the lamb." This writer recommends quicklime for disinfecting the pasture, and gives it as his opinion—an opinion that will be largely shared in—that the disinfection of pasture is undoubtedly the direction in which our efforts should tend.