Agricultural and Pastoral.

Otago Witness, Issue 643, 26 March 1864, Page 9

Agricultural and Pastoral.

AGRICULTURAL REPORT.

March 24, 18G4,

The harvest is now nearly over, only a small quantity of grain remaining uncut. It is gratifying to know that our farmers appreciate the advanta es of labor-saving machinery, and that the reaping-machine has to a greater extent than usual, facilitated the saving of crops this season. Now, too, that ploughing must recommence, the utility of threshing-machine v.ill be felt on many farms, this year, for the first time. The soil of this Province, naturally fertile to a remarkable degree, is so well watered by continual showers throughout the growing sea on, that our farmers can usually rely upon abundant crops, and are not harrnssed by constant failures occasioned by droughts and floods, as in the Australian colonies. All the crops this year, in OtagOj have been most abundant, the only casualty haviig been a single storm, which did some damage to wheat and barley in exposed situations. There is cause for regret that our farmers have given so much attention to oats, to the neglect of more valuable grain and root, as well as other crops. lJut it is difficult, in these colonies, where changes are so sudden, 1o predict what may happen to affect the markets, and the shrewdest merchant or farmer may be deceived. The aversion, however, which many of our farmers have to innovations upon the old and beaten track, operates greatly to their disadvantage.

The wholesale potato mai\ct in Melbourne, was oveistocked, at last accounts. Large quantities had bein Received from Warnambool, and the wholesale price was from £3 to £4 10s per ton. Onions were £5 103 ; cabbages, from 5d to Is 6d per dozeu, per load ; turnips, 9d to Is per dozen bundles ; apples, Id to 4d p r lb ; butter, lid to Is per lb; imported eggs, Is lOd per dozen.

A firm in Melbourne proposes to hold weekly auction sales of erain, potatoes, and other produce, such as butter, cheese, hacon, &c, for the convenience of persons in the country who do not wish to be their own salesmen, and" to afford a fair and public test of the value of the different articles from time to t me.

The spring wheat of this sparon's growth, which took the first prize at the Geelong Grain Show, was grown on the Barrabool Hills, nnd weiuhed 661b to the bushel, while the two kinds of winter wheat were from Colac, and only weighed 651b each.

The Ta«maniau papers mention the occurrence of a novel circumstance this season. It reminds one of the yearly, emigration of agricultural laborers from Ireland, to perform harrest work in England. A considerable number of persons, after the harvett was over in Australia, went to Tasmania to help the farmers there. The price paid for labor in the latter colony was from 9s to 12s per acre for wheat, when heavy. The crops ripened gradually, and were easily overtaken, but they were considerably below the average. The rust was tterv destructive.

We begin to hear complaints of the thi«tle nuisance, which is spreadiug in some parts of thisPiovince to an alarming extent, especially over the waste lands of the Crown. It somet liin-g is not immediately done to eradicate them and prevent them from destroying pasture, those lands will be greatly depreciated in value. As it is, the seeds having ripened and been driven ail over the country; an incalculable amount of damage has been done, which a little foresight might have prevented.

At the Adelaide Agricultural Show, this season, the grain was very fine, the weights of the prize samples having been greater on the whole than those of any former year. Tite first prize wheat from the hills weighed 681b. lloz. to the bushel, and the second prize sample 071b. 130z. ; some of the other lots not quite so clean, weighing 031b and 681b. 2oz. It was, however, in the wheat from the plains that the greatest improvement was visible. The first prize weighed C«lb. 4oz. The best English barley weighed 601b. 2oz. The best sample of Cape barley weighed as much as 571b. to the bushel. The oats were also heavy, the host lot, 501b. 3oz. - Fruit of all kinds was particularly

Mr Ainslie, secretary to the gentlemen in Victoria who got up the first iuter-colonial show of merinos, has received a letter from the secretaries of the three agricultural societies of Tasmania— the Northern, the Midland, and the Southern asking what amount of support is to be expected from the flockowners of that colony towards a similar &how of fine-woolled sheep in Tiismnnia next spring. The three societies hove agreed to act in conjunction, and do their best towards getting up a good exhibition, which, for the. convenience of exhibitors from other colonies, it is proposed to hold at Launceston or Longford . The prizes to be offered will amount in all to about £500. It is to be hoped that some of our Otago breeders will be ready to compete. We hear and read a good deal of the lung diseases in cattle, but according to the best authorities in Europe, where the subject was lone since thoroughly investigated, the conclusion has been arrived at that inoculation is the best remedy— all coercion being difficult in practice and restrictions to trade in cattle ruinous to the feeder as well as to the breeder. Professor Haubner, a Saxon veterinary surgeon, asserts that the cusease called pleuro pneumonia carries off from 2o to 50 per cent, of the animals affected by it whereas in the districts where inoculation has been practised, the loss docs not exceed 10 per cent., and the mortality is sometimes reduced to 2 per cent. This calculation has been confirmed by observations made in the neighborhood of Madgeburg, where it lias been practised on a 1 .rge scale tor the last nine years, and where the local practitioners, without any official character, have inoculated as many ns IG,OQO head of cattle. It lias been further ascertained that this remedy is useless unless adopted in time, and that it may be likewise used as a preservative for animnis in good health as well as a remedy for diseased animnls. Professor Haubner states that of 100,000 inoculations not one had produced any injurious enoefc Years ago the practice of inoculation was succpsslulJy adopted in France and Germany. Since the disease has broken out on the Tnieri, in this Province, it hns been successfully treated by inonila- « ?^- y T "? es > >Mr George Shand. Hesavs:— 1 think there is no question of the effectiveness of the system, for at the rate they were dying, I woud now have had very few cattle left, if I Trod not inoculated them when I did "