The Farm.

Otago Witness, Issue 1340, 4 August 1877, Page 18

The Farm.

CHATS WITH THE FARMERS. A VISIT TO THE FARM OF MR ROBERT GIBSON, NORTH TAIERI. Robert Gibson arrived at Dunedin with his father, from East Lothian, Scotland, in October, 1848, when fourteen years of age. While his father, who brought out a large family, worked for wages, he engaged as shepherd at Tokomairiro. In 1861 he purchased one hundred acres of land at North Taieri at £2 per acre. Two years afterwards he took unto himself a help-mate, and has now around him a family of eight boys and three girls. There was a heavy growth of flax and cabbage trees upon the land, and the clearing of it was rather expensive. He commenced with a few cows, and grew wheat, oats, and potatoes. One crop of potatoes yielded twelve ,tons per acre; The' year following, the same ground yielded seventy-five bushels of wheat to the acre. This fact will give some idea of the fertility of the North Taieri soil. It is a deep and exceedingly rich vegetable mould, with a clay sub-soil well-tempered with sand. Adjoining his hundred acres, he has since leased one hundred and fifty, so that he has now a very nice farm, which, we must say, he manages with more than ordinary intelligence. Wheat now brings a good price, and the temptation to go in for it, to the exclusion of other crops, is very great. Mr Gibson's land, too, would no doubt produce extraordinary crops of that grain for several years ; but he knows what the consequence wouldbe, and instead of adopting either the exhaustive or the speculative system, he adhereß determinate^ to the rotative mode, which is the only one by which land in the long run can be made to produce up to its greatest capacity. He is now putting in for next year fifty-five acres of wheat, forty-five of oats, twelve of turnips, twelve of potatoes, three of mangold-worzels, and one of carrots — the remainder of the ground being in English grass. This farm produces larger crops of wheat than almost any other that we have visited. The average yield of wheat upon Mr Gibson's land is sixty 'bushels to the acre, and of oats sixty-five bushels. In good seasons, he has had as high as eighty to eightyfive bushels of the latter crop. This was a bad season for wheat, the ears not having filled out well, and Mr Gibson had not more than forty-five bushels to the acre. Forty to fifty head of cattle, and three hundred sheep, besides a few horses and pigs, ; are fed upon this farm. Twenty cows .— a cross between Colonial, and Shorthorn — are milked, and the quantity of butter made, after feeding the calves, is one hundred and twenty pounds per week. Ten or twelve pigs are usually fed, chiefly upon the proceeds of the dairy. After a green crop, Mr Gibson takes one crop of wheat, then oats, and either a root crop or English grass follows.' Rye gras3 and 'clover grow most luxuriantly upon this farm, and the sheep and cattle are well cared for, and kept in high condition. The yield of potatoes has not been as good as usual this year on the Taieri, owing to an excess of moisture. Mr Gibson grew twenty acres, more for the purpose of cleaning the ground than for market. Sheep are his speciality, and j they not only pay well in wool and carcase, but keep up the fertility of the land. Mr Gibson feels the want of trees for shelter, and regrets that he had not long since commenced their cultivation. Better late, however, than never, and last August he planted out, in two or three belts, one thousand gum trees, which cost in Dunedin £10.

Floods were troublesome in this part of the plain until six years ago, when a channel was cut by the settlers for drainage between Silver Stream and the Taieri. It is fourteen feet wide, and five feet deep.

President Robinson, of Brown University, urges protection to the birds. Attention has been given to the matter by the Legislature, but the laws are not enforced. Every man should regard his orchard as entirely his own, and treat the gunner, who trespasses upon it, as a poacher, amenable to the law. It does not seem to him that there are half as many birds as there were fifty years ago, and the insects have increased in greater proportion. Birds soon find out where they are safe, as do the wild ducks, who visit the Cove, and if shot at deserfc the farms. Their office in destroying insects is one of very great importance to the farmer and fruit-grower. C. Dickinson, the well-known druggist at New Britain, Conn., is also an extensive and successful farmer. He has one method of sowing yellow globe turnips with grass seed in seeding down which is to be commended. His crop of turnips laat year yielded very largely. Some of them grew to the size of 4 pounds, 14 ounces. He regards turnips as one of the be'eri paying crops when sown with grass/

Many of our best farmers estimate the profits of using a roller in different seasons from $5 to §50, and in some rare cases as high as JjjSlOO per day, where it was used in the Spring on Winter wheat which was badly thrown out by the action of the frost. A fair walking team will roll from 12 to 16 acres in a day with a good sixfoot roller — Chautauqua Farmer. In the department of Biscay, France, every landowner must plant two saplings for every timber tree he cuts down, fn Java the birth of every child is celebrated by planting a fruit tree, which is as carefully tended as the record of the age of the child whose birth it registers.