TO SEPARATE HONEY FROM WAX.

Otago Witness, Issue 1005, 4 March 1871, Page 10

TO SEPARATE HONEY FROM WAX.

Put the honey, comb and all, in a tin pan, on, or in a moderately warm stove, adding to each pound of honey a tablespoonful of water. Stir it occasionally with a piece of wire ; if anything large is used there will be an accumulation of dirty, cold wax continually added to the hot mass. When the contents of the pan are perfectly liquid — it must not boil — set it where it can cool undisturbed. Then take a knife, and pass it carefully round the pan, to detach the cake of wax, etc. , on. the top, and rapidly, with great care, lift off the cake. Don't let it drain into the pan an instant, but place it in another utensil. Any one thus clarifying honey will find, on putting aside the cake of wax, that every particle of impurity, 4hat would have to be strained from the iaoney, will have adhered to the cake of wax, and nothing remains beneath but the golden-coloured honey, clear as water. If the honey should, in time, candy, heat it again with a very little water and wMte sugar. T£eep jn jars, tied up, in a cool .place. Break lap the way cake and •wash in cold water till cleansed from the honey. Then melt and strain it. To bleach the wax, boil it, after straining, ■ lor an hour in plenty of water, in whioh use a few drops of chloride of soda. When -quite cold, lift off the wax and leave it to dry and whiten in the open air.

The establishment of a iGovernment Agricultural Department is advocated by the Taranaki Herald in a recent article.

With respoefc to the harvest in ihe Arrow the local correspondent of the <CromweJl Argus -writes :— " The farmers aw getting glorious weather, rod are maViug the

most of it ; hands are sufficient, reaping machines plentiful, and two steam threshers may make the farmer very nearly independent of the weather. The crops are average, and a few patches are truly magnificent."

A Farmers' Club is about to be formed at Timaru. Its principal object is the ship ment of grain to England direct.

The crops in the southern districts of Canterbury will on the whole be light this year, though better than was expected a few weeks ago. The greater portion of the crop has been secured in good order. Fourteen acres of oats grown by Mr M 'Unity, Roaring Meg, are exoected to yield 600 bushels of gram, or an average of nearly 43 bushels per acre. A finer harvest season than the present (says the Wakatip Mail) could scarcely be wished for in the district. Wheat is good ; oats light. Potatoes promise an average crop. The steam threshing machines have already got to work. In the northern districts of Canterbury, according to the Press, the harvest is well nigh over ; threshing is therefore beginning in earnest, and there will be very little diffioulty this season in getting the corn ready for market, as the threshing machines are plentiful. All the corn is secured in sound condition, bnt in some localities the crops were thin and light, principally owing to the somewhat protracted dry weather of the season. The pastures, brown and withered in appearance a few weeks back, have wonderfully revived latterly ; the cattle, too, generally Beem in prime condition, which fact is an evidence of the quantity of grass.

Harvesting operations in the Wakatip district, according to the local paper, are pro* grossing rapidly. All is activity. The two steam machines are hard at work. The weather has been so hot for months past that the wheat can be taken from the stooks and at once thrashed out. Thiß saves stacking in a good many cases. The oat crop, however, besides a good proportion of the wheat, goes to the stack, as the machines cannot do all the work. A good deal of ground just reaped was lately ploughed up, but renewed dry weather has stopped this class of work. Wages are L 2 per week and found. La* our is plentiful

A meeting of the Royal Horticultural Society of Otago was held on Wednesd ly in the office of the Secretary, MrT. B. TJlph. The Vice-President occupied the chair. Thtit gentleman and the Secretary were requested to communicate with the Superintendent, with the view of ascertaining the probable date of the arrival of His Excellency in town, and if it i~e necessary to alter the date of the autumn show bo as to secure the Governor's presence. The various committees in connection wi>h the show were appointed, and it is anticipated that the show, whioh will be held in the Post Office Hall, will prove highly successful.