NOTES ON RURAL TOPICS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1805, 25 June 1886, Page 7

NOTES ON RURAL TOPICS.

The country correspondents of the THE Witness in nearly every case report weather heavy rains, with snow and very and the boisterous weather generally, cauaCROFS. ing a cessation of tillage operations, and, in fact, all farming work, for a time. If it is true that a dry summer is followed by a very wet winter, then it is certain that we are in for a winter of the very wettest description. Farmers are prepared for a reasonable amount of bad weather at this time of the year, but heavy rainfalls in rapid succession, as reported by the correspondent at the Upper Taieri, must necessarily put :i stop to wheat sowing for some time, as the ground has not time to recover from one downpour before it is inundated by another. The advantages of getting the wheat sowing done early in the autum6 have been so frequently aim! fr rcibly stated in these columns that it is scarcely necessary to repeat them now, and in fact it is too late in the season for any remarks on the subject to be of any use. 1 am woll ' aware that farmers cannot always do as they wish with regard to many important operations, and rb often happens that though one may know perfectly well what he should do, circumbtaures over which he has no control prevent him from doing it. As the weather here has interfered with autumn and winter sowing, so it is hindering the progress of the sowing of the .spring crops in Britain. Frequent, rains — according to the Home correspondent of the Witness — have militated sadly against the satisfactory working of the ground for and sowing of the barley crop. The spring season in the Old ' Country aud the summer, so far as it has gone, have been ex- , tremely wet, but the wheat crop has improved BO much that, by the latest cable news, the wheat market has again dropped a shilling per quarter. The recent upward movement in wheat appears to be confined to the Colonial markets, and entirely independent of the London values. I have heard recently of a merchant making several thousand pounds within a few days by baying and selling wheat. The hard-working producer barely clears expenses in growing the wheat, while a 'cute speculator can make a small fortune in no time by a few strokes 'of the pen.

J What with distressed leasehold A paternal tennants of the Crown, deferred govesnmet payment settlers in arrears, agitaTO THE tors for rabbitskins bonus, and unbbscue. employed working men— all in de-

putation3 assembled — the Premier will soon be in the uupnviable position of the "eld woman that lived in a shoe," aud will have to consider so many pitiful petitions th.it he really will not know what to do. It is to be hoped he will not lose his temper like the old lady in the nursery ryame, and dismiss the petitioners with — well, anything but ordei-o oh the Tre; sury. .Though it is groatly to be regretted that any course should have arisen for tho present application for relief from the Government by the lessees of Crown lands, I cannot help agreeing with the remarks on the subjects in the leading article of last week's Witness. There may be many of the tenants who are giving a far higher rent for their land than they can conveniently pay now that times are so hard, but they ar« not the only ones in that pickle, for there are scores of farmers who leased and bought land some years ago when farming wa-> fairly profitable, and now find it a very difficult m tier to be prepared for the rent day — or the in taluaents of the purchase money of their farms —and yet they have no chance of being relieved of their liabilities, but struggle on manfully and fcopafully striving by ©very nieanb in their power

to pay their way and tide over the bad times, knowing that they must either do that or give up altogether. It is only when a private landlord finds that things have reached such a pass that if he turns out a defaulting tenant he will not easily get anyone to take his place, and therefore has to choose between farming the land himself or reducing the rent— that he will adopt the latter course. As stated in the, leader of the Wituess before mentioned, the tenants of the crown have not yet arrived at last extremity, aud I scarcely think the Government would be justified in granting the prayer of the petitioners yet :v >\hile at th« r>-:-peuse of the colony and general taxpayers, many of whom probably are quite as hardly situated as those who are agitating for assistance. When the pastoral leases were disposed of at auction — as most of them were — ' the purchasers no doubt thought they had got a good thiug, and if wool and mutton had maintained good prices we should not have heard anything about the lucky occupiers of the crown lands who were making a good thing of it to the detriment of the colony. I don't mean to say for a moment that they conld or j would be expected to do anything of the sort, j but I do say that finding they have made a ! mistake in taking the land at the price they did, they should not clamour to be let off their bargain. If the Premier talks to the deputation of tenants as straight and plainly as he did to the deputation of working (?) men in Christchurch some months ago, they will give up all hopes of relief from that quarter. A year or two ago the idea was tcwacco very prevalent that tobacco growculture. ing could be made a profitable industry in Otago on the strength of a few experimental plots having succeeded. The subject was fully discussed aud ventilated in the Witness, and a series of articles appeared in its columns fully explaining the cultivation ' of tobacco and its preparation for market.. Since that time, however, very little has been heard of the m«v industry which, I am afraid, came to an untimely end in its infancy. Certain Chinamen in the Wakatipu J district (if I recollect aright) were reported to have been engaged in raising tobacco on a small scale for some years, but I have no means of knowing whether its cultivation has extended in any appreciable degree I never considered the climate of Olago, as a whole, was at all adapted for tobacco growing, though there may be various smaK sheltered spots where it would come to perfection. The climate and soil of the North Island in, one would think, pre-eminently suitable for the plant, but even there it, does not appear to have beeu a source of profit to the Auckland company formed expressly for the growth aud manufacture of tobacco and cigars. It appears from the letter of the Home agricultural correspondent that tobacco, being a dutiable article, cannot be grown in the United Kingdom without thb consent of the authorities having charge of the revenue. Colonial "fanners would think it very strange to be restricted as to what crops they should cultivate. The day will come, and is probably not far distant, when we shall be in the full enjoyment of excise duties and a horde of excisemen to see that the revenue is not vobbed by any unlawful production of the soil. I suppose we have the excise in a mild form in the beer tax. The sheep tax anil tbe dog tax would scarcely come under that head. I think the revenue of the United Kingdom will not lose much by the production and manufacture of tobacco : as the correspondent referred to says, tobacco fit for smoking cannot be grown in the British Isles with any more success than in this district. J

Agbicola.