EAST TAIERI.

Otago Witness, Issue 1155, 17 January 1874, Page 12

EAST TAIERI.

Some of the early sown crops are now beginning to shed colour and take on the golden hue which indicates the drawing near of harvest. Some of the oats will be cut before the end of the present week, while the wheat is also getting forward in places, and will be "own" in about a week or ten days. It will be about three weeks, however, before the harvesting of this crop becomes general. From present appearances, it will be patchy at first, which will allow of harvest hands gathering it in before the bulk of the harvest comes on. The crops as a whole look well ; but on the outer edges of the fieldß some are blighted by the wind loosening the roots and causing the crop to whiten prematurely, while the body of the field is yet green. The barley is now coming out of the hose and showing the head fully, but a good breadth of this crop will be short in the straw from the late sowing and the present dry weather. The potatoes are looking well all over, though very blanky in places. They show plenty of shaws, whatever they are at the root. The setting up of them is well forward. The early sown green crops are now ready for thinning, which is being done daily, while a good many of the farmers are only getting ready to sow turnips, to be singled after the harvest. The grass hay crop is nearly all cut and ready for the stack. Whilst the weather has been all that could be desired for this crop, the pasturage is now fast drying up and getting brown. A good many of the farmers are carting water to the steadings, as the creeks are for the most part dry.