AGRICULTURAL AND PASTORAL NEWS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1856, 17 June 1887, Page 7

AGRICULTURAL AND PASTORAL NEWS.

A vigorous effort is about to be made in the United States to extirpate pleuropneumonia. The Agricultural department has been granted no less a sum than 500,000d0l (£100,000) for the purpose, and is just entering on what our American cousins term "a vigorous and general campaign 'against that contagion."

A new era in milling will shortly be inaugurated by Mr P. M'Gill, of Tokomairiro, whose roller mills are now approaching completion. The oatmeal apparatus is already at work, and giving every satisfaction.

It is satisfactory to find that Otago bred stock have shown up well at the Sydney Agricultural Show. The champion Ayrshire hull was Champion, bred by Mr K. B. Fergusson, o£ Blueskin, and the champion Ayrshow cow was Lovely Jane, by Young '■Eempleton.

A fairly successful grain shown was held at Winton on the Bth inst. The Southland Times' correspondent comments thus on the affair :— " There was a very fair number of exhibits in* most of the classes, and the judges had in some cases a difficulty in coming to a deoision, There were six entries of wheat,

and Mr Thomas Hamilton secured first prize with a splendid sample. In short oats Mr Keith took first and third prizes, while in long oats he got second prize. Mr James Thomson showed splendid samples of perennial rye and barley. The rye was exceedingly clean, while for barley Mr Thomson cannot be beaten. Mrs Chapman proved to be the best butter maker, as she was successful in taking first for fresh and powdered, and third award for salted. I hear that she has taken 21 prizes in different parts of the Middle Island. There were very few competitors for honours in the cheese department, and Mrs Collie was adjudged the first prize. There were very few entries of hams, bacon, poultry, and garden produce. Mr B. Wilson showed a specimen of his handicraft in the shape of a double-furrow plough, and those who ought to know what a plough is say that it is almost faultless. Mr John Hartley showed a single buggy and a spring cart, and. Mr Liddell a large assortment of saddlery displayed, which were much admired. The judges were : For grain and roots, Messrs Macintosh and Cooper; for dairy produce, Mr A. Storie."

The Bruce Herald, in a rather bitter article on the Shearers' Union, makes a suggestion which might be certainly practicable in some cases at all events. Our contemporary says: — " We believe that in the majority of instances sheepowners could themselves overtake the work of the shearing season with the assistance of their neighbours, and such labour as could be obtained in their immediate locality. This idea may very likely be condemned in haste as impossible to be carried out. It will be said that the clip could not be got in in time for the best markets, and other objections urged. But it has not been tried. It is astonishing how seeming difficulties vanish when proper attempts are made."

Growing wheat in England is growing ruin, if we may rely on Mr Samuel Eowlandson, who recently gave the details of his 22 years' experience at Newton Morrel, at Darlington. Bringing costs down to the conditions of 1886, he estimates the expenses of wheat after fallow at £8 2s 6d per acre, and of wheat after clover at £5 2s 6d per acre. The rent is taken at 30s per acre, tithe 4s, rates 3s. From 1879 to 1885 the average price per acre received for the grain was £5 4s, showing a loss of about £1 8s per acre.

A freak of nature is recorded at Mataura. A sow belonging to Mr Balneaves had a litter of six pigs. Exactly three weeks and four days afterwards she had another litter of 10.

Mr John Thornton, who is accepted as one of the best authorities in England, states that "the obese state in which it has become the fashion to exhibit valuable young breeding heifers has a great tendency to deteriorate the milking qualities. Kept in high condition from calfhood, the milk veins cannot develop."

Horses in the Eedesdale district, as reported by the correspondent of the Kyneton Guardian, are dying from a peculiar disease, of which no one seems to know either cause or cure; some attribute it to a poisonous herb ; others aver that cold is the immediate cause. The malady has been prevalent in the district for upwards of 16 years at this particular season, and more especially while pasture is good, horses fed in the stable never having been known to suffer from it.

The latest accounts from South American flockowners are that scab is spreading rapidly. No doubt; it can and will be eradicated, but it must lead to a great depreciation of stock and wool.

Victoria is surely a paradise for foxes, cover is abundant and food is plentiful, rabbits are to be had everywhere, and for a change the farmer's unprotected poultry is.seldom far to seek. Lamb appears to be a titbit, and even mutton is welcome on emergency. Foxes are spreading rapidly over the country ; almost daily one or other of the country newspapers report; their appearance in far distant places. At Mansfield the other day a selector named Gamble observed two of these pests killing sheep on his ground, and thought them native dogs, but on managing to secure one he found it a full grown dog fox, the first that has been found in the district.

The network of railways now spread over the sister colony of Victoria (says an exchange) has lately been utilised in a way never anticipated by those early settlers who advocated their construction. The carriage of fat stock from the holdings to market was one of the chief arguments urged in favour of their construction, but that they would be used for the conveyance of lean and povertyperished animals was never anticipated. However, during the past few weeks, owing to the drought which has prevailed over the usually grass-covered Western districts of Victoria, the exodus of starving sheep by train from the Hamilton railway station has been quite a feature of the traffic. These sheep are then conveyed, without loss and without delay, from their own bare pastures to the, at present, grandiy grassed runs on the New South Wales side of the Murray. Thus it is made apparent how the extension of the railway system from one colony to the other may ultimately save much capital loss to owners when droughts are but local in extent. Also, we are glad to say that this ability to transport feeble, even dying, stock will ameliorate those untold accompaniments of a period of drought, the sufferings of the animals themselves.

"Atticus," in the North Otago Times, makes the following comparison between the Taieri and.Oamaru districts: — "While the farmers of the Taieri plain firmly believe that their district is unapproachable for agricultural purposes by any in the colony, those of the Oamaru district just as tenaciously hold to the same opinion with regard to theirs. The Taieri, of course, having been first settled, dropped in the first place by right of priority, and his "inhabitants now sternly refuse to accept any proof whatever of the superiority of this despised locality. I, for one, am quite willing to take the position that the land of both places is good enough for anything, and that, generally speaking, the rivalry between the two districts resolves itself into a question of climatic influence. It is a well-known axiom in agriculture that while a farmer may, by manuring, draining, &c, greatly

enhance the valuable properties of the soil, he can do nothing that will to any extent counteract the influence of the atmosphere. Where the atmosphere abounds in moisture the tendency of all crops is towards bulk and quantity, while where moisture is , scarce and heat plentiful quantity gives way to quality. This is precisely the case in the Taieri and Oamaru districts. The former has a wet climate, and the latter a dry one. The characteristics of the Taieri are abundance of grass, and great bulk of straw in the grain crops. In Oamaru we have marvellously little grass and often just as little straw, but the quality of the grain and the nutritive properties of the pasture are great in proportion. This is as natural as life itself, and there . is no getting away from it. It is simply in accordance with Nature'srules. If practical proof be wanted of this sort of theorising in may be found in the fact that northern-grown potatoes are frequently quoted in Dunedin markets at 10s per ton higher than " southerners." But while the bulk and quantity of the crop, is, as a rule, more assured in the South than it is here, the weight of crop that the land here will produce, when we do get an all round favourable season, is almost phenomenal. The wheat average of this district runs over a very wide compass.. We have seen, in a dry season, as *lit.tle as 15 bushels. Forty bushels is accounted a good crop, nobody is surprised at 50 or 60, and 70 and 80 are quite within the range of possibility. There are probably very few places where the average can go so high or so low without exciting comment, and all this, it is to be remembered, is due to the weather. There is no doubt that in the matter of wheatgrowing, our soil will compare very favourably with that of the Taieri or any other place in the world."