FARMING IX OTAGO.

Otago Witness, Issue 1668, 10 November 1883, Page 14

FARMING IX OTAGO.

The seventh annual show of the Ofcago Agricultural and Pastoral Association will be held .at Forbury Park on Wednesday and Thursday. 21st and 22nd iust. Liberal prizes are offered by the Association, and no doubt the competition will be satisfactory. The entries are due on Tuesday, the 13th inst., so that stockowners and intending exhibitors generally should lose no time in communicating with the secretary, Mr Sydney James. Tha Association, it may be noted, are desirous of encouraging the exhibition of local manufactures, and this ought year by year to bacome a more and more interesting feature of the show. (from our own oobbespondknts.) Our Wangaloa correspondent writes : — Farmers have now got their busy season over for another six months, and can afford to take it easy, or take a holiday if they have nothing else to do._ But this happy state of things, it is feared, is not reserved for farmers, for whoever heard of a farmer having nothing to do ? Although the crops wero got in a good deal earlier than usual, as a rulo they are v«ry backward. This is especially tho case with wheat, some fields having quite a brown appearance. I notice when this is the case some farmers roll early, and this seems to have a beneficial effect. Tliere has been an unusual continuance of cold winds, especially from the east. There seems to have been a change within the last two or three years. Formerly tho prevailing winds were from the S.W., but % think that, in thi3 locality at all events, the reverse is the case now. Although the season bas been so unfavourable for the crops, pasturage is pretty well forward. Our Kaihiku correspondent writes :—-So: — -So far as the season has passed the crops are very promising, and from all appearances are much more forwavd than they were at this time last year, although the late boisterous and frosty weather has had the effect of discolouring 3ome of the spring-sown fields. Turnip sowing has been started, and ia bein^ carried on apace. Artificial manure, along with a good amount of guano, is being used. The latter I should highly recommend for turnips, and even grain. It consists principally of phosphates, and contains the moat essential constituents in promoting the growth and production of root and cereal crops, and in maintaining the fertility of the soil. Experience has proved that a "forced or rank, flaggy growth, such as is produced by ammoniacal manures, is undesirable, because it predisposes grain crops to disease, and especially to the attack of rusfe. In dry seasons none of the guano's valuable constituents are absorbed by the atmosphere and lost, as is always the case more or loss with all ammoniacal manures. — Pastoral : Grass is very plentiful throughout the district ; ia some spots it is growing luxuriantly despite the cold. The U3ual busy time among tho sheep has come, and " docking and tailing" lambs is the order of the day. Our Porfcobelio correspondent writes : — As a consequence of the cold, vegetation is at a standstill ; sown crops, such as wheat and oats, are looking very abort for this time of the year, and grasa is making no progress at all. During the past two seasons there was a feneral complaint of want of sufficient rain to ring on the hay at this time of the year, but this year we have had plenty of rain, and the deficiency of boat lia« been the standing complaint. The hay crop I have no doubt will be good, but it will be a month later than usual. Our Lake correspondent writes : — The rough weather which ha<3 prevailed here lately has had a disastrous effect; upon our orchards, and especially upon plums and apricots, which in consequence will bo very scarce. Apples and pears are promising a plentiful crop, and cherries also are coming in in geod numbers, but have yet to battle with the danger from the small-bird pest. The ciops throughout the district are looking very well, a copious downpour of rain comiug just when wanted, has given a wonderful start to vegetation of every description. The hills are greener with grass than is usual, and natural tood for live stock abounds in every part of the district. The rabbits no doubt will thrive with tho increase of herbage, and the possibility of destroying them by poison is gone for this season. However, they are not so numerous yet as they bays been formerly, though there may be Jifiolated cased of deprodation by the pest. Where they are numerous in the settled parts of the district, there is generally a cause for their being a plague, and this may be looked lor in the carelessness of the settlers themselves. I have it, on the authority of a gentleman who owns one of the largest farms in the district, that with Stewart's exterminators

diligently worked, there need be no fear or apprehension of serious loss forom the rabbits on enclosed lands, The danger lies in the hill country.

Our Havelock correspondent writes:— The weather is cold and stormy to a degree, and should thia style of affairs continue, it will no doubt have an ill effect on the crops, which are well above ground. The feasibility of growing rye for chaff is being freely discussed at present. ' It has been very successfully grown on Mount Stuart by Mr Crozier, who, I am told, ia in every way satisfied with the result. It ia a ' new departure, and as such is likely to bo experimented on by the minority only. In our favoured district the farmers, taken all through, don't seem to have an idea beyond the growth of oats and wheat. "It doesn't pay to experiment," is the often expressed opinion, and this is the main reason why so many industries are allowed to lie dormant. Hops make luxuriant growth here, but I question if anyone, even the members of the Farmers' Club, dream of cultivating them. 'Now, perhaps, when public attention i« drawn to the desirablity of hop culture, the Club will strike out an independent lino of action, and for the benefit of all and sundry try what really can be done with hops. " Nothing venture nothing have," is an old and true proverb, and one that gives farmers ample time to grumble at the losv prices of wheat, oats, and potatoes. Is anything else ever produced on the majority of farms but turnips. Our West Taieri correspondent writes : — I Summer has again come, and notwithstanding I the wet weather we have experienced of late, things have quite a' refreshing appearance. Owing to the stormy weather, however, the farmers in the lower parts of the Plain are somewhat behind, some not having all their oats sown. On the uplands the preparing of turnip-ground is being gone on with. Sheepshearing has also begun in the district. The demand caused by the freezing companies has stimulated the farmers in this district to go more largely in for sheep, which have already considerably increased in value of late. (fboii our exchanges.) The Chatton correspondent of the Mataura Ensign writes : — The crcps are looking passable, and by all appearance tha grass is going to be very good here this year. Many are busy sowing artificial grasses at present. The lambing season, now about closed (says the Clutha Leader), is the best we have experienced for some years back. Mr Robson, Whitelea, informs us that from 478 ewes he had 502 lambs. The lambing throughout the Clutha is likely to be at least 10 per cent, above the average of the last five years ; and as probably, after weaning, lambs will bring from Is to 2s per head more than last ieason, this means a considerable addition te the wealth of the district. From what we have been informed by Mr Ritchie, of Mount Royal, the impression that ferrets are in the habit of first sucking the blood of their victims and then going to sleep is an erroneous one. His experience the other ' day, where he saw three rabbits followed into a ! burrow by two ferrets, showed a very different result from this. On digging out the ferrets it was found that one of them had decamped, but that the other was atill in the burrow, and fchafc the rabbits were found to have been nipped behind the neck and left lying dead there. Tho ferrets were not Mr Ritchie's tame ones, but a couple that had evidently strayed on to the run from some other locality. There are almost as many " cures " for blight on fruit-trees as there are varieties of fruit. Our own experience is in favour of treatment twice a year— fall and spring time— with kerosene and water, and thus preventing the development of the pest. — Cromwell Argus. The Dipton correspondent of the Southland News writes : — Most of the grain is not only in, but well above ground, and looking fine .and healthy, and, with anything like a favourable season, and a little good harvest, weather, the yield will exceed anything hitherto obtained in these parts in wheat, thougli I much doubt if there are oats enough sown for the requirements of the district. Potatoes will ba a big crop here this year should the yield be proportionate to the area planted. The Swift Creek correspondent of the Tuapeka Times writes :— " The number of dead lambs now lying in paddocks affording no shelter shows that the recent storms did a great deal of damage. It is common now, on account of rabbits, to tear down and do away with gorse fences, but it is really a question which of the two 'is the greater cvil — to have such hard cover for rabbitß, or open bare paddocks having no shelter, where often enough 1 grown sheep have as much as they can do to live, much less lambs. At a recent meeting at Swift Creek the rabbit question was again prominent, the majority present giving squatters credit for a great deal of their trouble. Some runs in certain parts of Otago — large runs too — during last winter were thoroughly poisoned, so that scarcely a rabbit wastobeseen. Theowners of the runs laid poison in rows right through their runs, four chains apart, and arranged their affairs so that the skina paid for labour, poison, and oats, giving thorough satisfaction. Grain sowing is through, and generally braird" is looking well. The spring cannot be said to have been late or bad, the month of September being rather favourable, gave grass a start and put cattle and sheep in good condition, and land in suitable order for grain. Iq several places fruit trees have been materially affected by the late frosts and snow. In one or two instances I have seen whole orchards in which tho blossom has been almost cleared—^the very leaves and buds of the tree blasted." We (Mataura Ensign) hear that the caterpillar has made its appearance in the Upper Otama on the farms of Messrs Logan, Bruce, and Watson. Mr Watson turned his sheep on his wheat in the hope of destroying the pest, but whether his plan has succeeded or not we have not heard. Mr Logan has some six or seven acres partly destroyed by the pest, and in several places the wheat on Mr Bruce's property does not look so flourishing as it did some short time back, on account of the noxious little insects. It may not be inappropriate to mention here that the grub first made its appearance on land that last year had wheat on ib. New land does not appear to be so readily affected by the pest as old land. Prom this it would seem probable that the grub has been in the ground in a chrysalis state since last summer, and only needed the ground a bit loose to allow it to mature on tho young wheat. Iti seems a great pity that something could not be applied to stop its destructive tendency. Some who have had experience say that lime or soot sown on the spots affected will destroy it. " Steeline," the rabbit-destroyer invented by a Mataura resident, is now coming into general use, and on all sides we hear favourable ac•ounts of it. Some of the largest runholders in the district have used it with gratifying results. — Ensign As an instance of the energy displayed by some large land-owners in this quarter to cope with the rabbit pest, we (Clutha Leader) may mention that from Ist May 1882 to Ist May 1883, Mr Palgliesh baled 42,000 rabbitskina

from his freehold and leasehold properties *, and from Ist May 1883 to Ist October last he obtained 3300 skins. He is still continuing to lay poison with satisfactory results, and is also carrying on the work of destruction by meanß of dogs, traps, &c. If all landowners were to follow his example, there would be a good hope of the peßt being ultimately got under. Unfortunately, however, we hear numerous complaints of parties either altogether neglecting the matter, or of only using insufficient means to reduce the number of rabbits upon their properties. Thus they not only suffer themselves, but the rabbit« overspread the adjoining properfciw to tha serious injury of their neighbours.