PALMERSTON DISTRICT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22256, 8 May 1934, Page 11

PALMERSTON DISTRICT

EXCELLENT GRAIN YIELDS (From Oor Own Correspondent.) PALMERSTON, May 7. The weather for the past week hss been cold and wet, and the cold winds were very disagreeable, although the rain was of benefit to the soil. Dipping in the district is completed, except for a few isolated cases. Rape crops are almost finished, and farmers are feeding off lambs on soft turnips Jjud swedes. Cows are falling off in milk, and farmers are starting giving them winter, feed in the shape of chou molher and soft turnips to try and keep up the yield. • A fair number of farmers have been engaged iu the sowing down of pastures in oats and grass. These will be excellent spring feed for ewes and lambs if good strikes are obtained, and already some such have been reported. Threshing operations are almost completed, a few odd stacks only X’emaining. Good yields have been threshed, several reaching 50 and one 60 bushels of wheat to the acre, while oats have returned up to 80 bushels per acre. Mr J. Service sowed two paddocks of .a type of wheat not previously grown in this district, known as Jumbuck. It is said to have all the properties of Velvet wheat except that it does not shake so readily, and is very good for flour. Mr Service obtained returns of 45 ' and 54 bushels per acre respectively from his two paddocks. , The best oat yields reported are those of Messrs D. Wright and A. M’Leod, 80 and 71 bushels per acre respectively. Mr C. T. M'Callum, of Flag Swamp, has again had success with his Montgomeryshire late flowering red clover, which is in its second season. Several other farmers have ordinary red clover to harvest, but so far weather conditions have been very much against them. The Palmerston Five Hundred Card Tournament was advanced a further stage on Saturday night when the Railway Social Club beat the Oddfellows’ Lodge by a substantial majority. The Railway has now a good-lead in games as.it also beat the Druids’ Lodge by a fair margin. A combined meeting of the Palmerston Branch of the Women’s Division of the Farmers’ Union and the Women’s Institute was addressed in the Town Hall supper room on Thursday by Miss Johnston, of the Home Science Extension Service, on the subject of “ Personality and Dress.” A large attendance appreciated a very interesting lecture. While the weather* over the week-end was rough, cold, and wet, this district escaped the full severity of the storm experienced in the north. Rain fell throughout Friday.