RIVERTON.

Otago Witness, Issue 1892, 15 May 1890, Page 18

RIVERTON.

Mat 12.— Harvest is quite over and mining is very quiet, so we have got back to the jog-trot state, which will probably last through the winter. The election of the school committee came off as usHal, but there was very little interest taken in it, as our school is one of the well-conducted ones, in which no burning grievances arise to atir up either individual or the public " bile." Mining.— The Longwood Sluicing 00. (Limited) have increased their capital by the issue of 100 new shares of £10 each. This will enable them to thoroughly test the ground, in whioh they expect to strike a very rich run of gold. It is to be hoped they will be successful, as their success moans the opening of an extensive goldfield. Two water rights applied for, situated at Ooal Island, were granted by the warden at the last sitting of the court here. There was a case heard in the KM. Oourt in which D. M'Leod sued J. Irvine for a sixth share of the cost of prospecting Lake George. Mr Irvine denied all liability, but M'Leod got a verdict for the amount claimed, &1 17s 6d, with costs, £2 5s 6d. AGRICULTURAL.— In the agricultural news in last week's Witness an extraordinary crop of onions grown by a Mr Sheehy was referred to in rather a sceptical manner. Twenty-live tons to the acre, although not an everyday crop, is often got in favourable seasons by onion growers. In the early " fifties " I saw a crop of onions grown close to Toorak (the Governor's residence), near Melbourne, which panned out as follows : —Three-quarters of an acre was sown in drills, out of which £100 worth of young onions were drawn and sent to the Melbourne vegetable Market. Then plants enough were drawn to plant an acre, which left the plants in the original three-quarters of an acre just the proper distance apart. The acre was planted just as we plant cabbage plants on a large scale— viz., .'they were laid on the edge of the newly-turned furrow and covered by the next one, the plough used being a Yankee wooden one drawn by one horse. When harvested the crop from the acre and three-quarters yielded ' over 40 tons, whioh were sent to Bendigo at a cost of £30 per ton, where they fetched £80 per ton, giving .over £2000 for the crop, less the cost of cultivating, which, of course, was considerable, as the ground was heavily mauured and well cultivated. The original threequarters of an acre received a dressing of 28 loads of stable manure, 7cwt of bone dust, and If owt of Peruvian guano. The acre was so dosed with pelts from a neighbouring fellraongery that when ploughingto cover , the plants the soil was quite slimy, and smelt well like anything but the usual healthy smell of newly ploughed land.