AGRICULTURAL AND PASTORAL NEWS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1905, 14 August 1890, Page 6

AGRICULTURAL AND PASTORAL NEWS.

Mr O. H. D. Hunter, in a letter to the Toa* peka Times on the proposed rabbit faotory a£ Lawrence, gives some interesting particulars as to necessary coßt, &o. He writes :— -"I con* sider that a faotory costing 61800 to £2009 should be capable of putting through 10*000 rabbits per day with a single shift, and 15,000 per day with a double one. I am also of opinion that bo large a capital as £5000, fully paid up, is quite unnecessary if so small a quantity as 3000 rabbits is all that you oan expect, At the Stonyford faotory, whioh was! built aooording to my plans, coating £1750, plant included, and whioh I managed for the last five. years, 8000 to 10,000 rabbits were often put through with a working capital of £1250# I preserved 346,000 rabbitß last season, producing 216,000 tins, and from the drawings on Bhipmenta found myself with all the working capital in hand by the end of the season. One important matter your company will require to decide is the process upon whioh the faotory will ba worked ; for if it works on my process it will require to be built on an entirely different plan to the Gore one. To ahow the results of thia process I will. give you the examinations of bix shipments in London. Out of 90,768 tins only 484 tins Were rejeoted —viz. : Tins

With regard to the differences in prices, in * recent issue of the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agenoy Company's London report* page 4, the following are given :— ! Per lb. Australian boiled rabbits a. 51d to 6d • New Zealand boiled rabbits ... 4jdto6Jd Aa the New Zealand rabbits are heavier and in better condition than the Victorian, tha difference is evidently the result of different processes of preserving." Th 1 c Sydney Mail, in answer to a query from a correspondent, says:— "Mr Wolfe, a wellknown family butcher of thiß city, .informauß, in referenoe to a reoent answer about big pigsthat the heaviest one he ever handled weighed 7751b when dressed. He displayed one last week which turned tho scale at 6861b." The Newcastle Oourant of a recent date gives particulars of a case of remarkabla parturition :— " On Thursday of last weak, whilst a farmer waß standing between two mares during a thunderstorm, near Oaermartheri, all three we're struck by lightning and killed, one of the mares giving birth to a foal at the same time, whioh is aaid to be doing well." The Mildura special settlement continues to attract considerable attention at Home. Tha other day Dr Pearson, acting Minister of Lands for Victoria, received a letter from a Liverpool gentleman aßking what concessions wouJd be made to an Englishman or a party of Englishmen possessed of capital, say, £30,000 to £40,000, in consideration of their settling ia the colony, and fostering and developing fraife cultivation on the lines of the Mildura colony. The writer states that were inducement offered the immigration to Iberia and Los Angelos by young Englishmen could be diverted to Australia, providing the affair was in the hands of Englishmen of known commercial standing and experience. A mare belonging to Mr Soatterty, ol Boddam, in the Insch district of Aberdeenshire, has had four foals in 14 months. List year one of the foals died, but both are doing well this season, A moat stringent law for the suppression of frauds in the manure trade has been brought into operation into France. As lons' ago aa February 1888 a law waa passed by the Legier- - lature, enacting that anyone found guilty of selling adulterated manures should be punished by imprisonment of from Bix days to one month, together with a fine whioh might range, from £2 to £80. It was not to come into force, however, until the Minister of Agriculture had appointed official ohemiats for all the departments, and bad drawn up systems of analysis whioh should be uniformly followed id tbe determination of tbe constituents of the different manures, and had also drawn up a oode of inßtruotiona for the magistrates ; hence the delay in bringing the law into force 4 Whether the manure is officially purchased or sent to the chemist by a farmer, the result of the annlyeiß has to be oent to the magistrate of the district in which the seller lives, and if adulterated, the magistrate issues a Bummona, and the case is tried. In the face of this very,' stringent law, the proapects of the manure' manufacturers are anything but roßy. The details of the purchase of the (J. H» Hammond Dressed Beef Company's busineßS in Chicago by English capitalists have just been' made public. The deal has been negotiated by Boston business men, and has been in hand since January. The price paid for the business is roundly £1,000,000. The company ib united in England with William Murray and Oo.'s beef and mutton selling agency, and is capitalised as follows :— £470,000 8 per cent, preferred Btook at £10 per share, £470,000 ordi« nary stock at £10 a share, £340,000 6 per cent* debenture bonds Bocured by first mortgage on

the whole property, redeemable January 11, 1910. The name of the new concern is the G, H. Hammond Company, Limited . Tbe A.meri ■ can trustees are ex-Governor Oliver Ames, of Massachusetts ; J. V. Fletcher, of the Faneuil Hall National Bank of Boston ; G. F. Grey, of the Hide and Leather National Bank of Chicago. Foxes, whioh are proving very troublesome in Viotoria, are being destroyed by meanß of slices of poisoned apples. Opinioos are divided as to whether the good they undoubtedly do in destroying young rabbits is not counterbalanced by their destruction of sbeep and poultry.

A potato- digging match at Bungaree is reported in the Ballarat Star. The time allowed was three hours, The names of the contestants were Lenehan and Quinn, the latter being known as the Western District champion potato digger. Lenehan won by three-quarters of a bag, tbe number of bags dug being—Lenehan, 6§ ; Quinn, 6, It is estimated that they dug between a-quarter and one-third of an acre. Therefore, in three hours, to dig this number of bags, it is reckoned that they are very smart diggers. A report of the meat supply of Australia, which the Government statistician of New South Wales has prepared, gives some interesting information relating to the flocks and herds in the colonies and the consumption of meat. Mr Coghlan estimates that the average yearly consumption of meat by each inhabitant of Australia is 2761b, compared with 1051b in Great Britain and 1201b in the United States and 481b in Russia, which has the lowest conBumption of all European States. He calculates that the supply of sheep is praotically inexhaustible because at the present rate of progress it will be over 75 years before the demand exceeds the supply, and taking the most unfavourable view regarding oattle it will be 22 years before the demand reaches the combined supply, It is something quite as rare as it is refreshing (says the Tuapeka Times) to see a farmer at a public meeting, surrounded by men of bis own claas, boldly take up the cudgels in defence of the much-abused rabbit inspectors. This was precisely what Mr John Mackay did at the publio meeting held in the Town Hall last Thursday evening in connection with the proposed rabbit tinning factory ; and, strange to say, he found not a Bingle man at the meeting to dispute the matter with him. " I think that all farmers' clubs and unions," said Mr Maokay, "should give every encouragement and assistance to the rabbit inspectors, and so enable them to do their duty fearlessly and impartially all the year round. I venture to think they do not get that assistance or tbat encouragement that I apeak of at present, I have every sympathy with those gentlemen in discharging their very disagreeable duties; but, at the same time, it becomes them much better to enforce the law placed in their bands for administration than to put one neighbour to the painful necessity of complaining of another/ 1 Thiß, as a rule, is not the way farmers are wont to speak of rabbit inspectors ; and the fact that Mr Maokay has done so will, perhaps, oause people to ask themselves whether* after all, it may be that the inspnotors are more sinned against than sinning. The Rabbit Aot is a very arbitrary piece of legal meobanism ; and it is very doubtful if the curses and abuse generally devoted to the rabbit inspectors might not be more appropriately reserved for the Babbit Act or, better still, for the law- makers whose wisdom it is Buppoaed to embody, A mob of 102 sheep, belonging to Mr Thomas W. Hammond, president of tbe Murrumbidgee Paßtoral and Agricultural Association, was on the sth and 15th July inoculated with anthrax vaccine prepared by M. Pasteur. On Saturday last (says the Sydney Mail of the 26th ult.) the animals were examined by Mr Charles Lyne, the Wagga district stook inspector, lor the purpose of hia furnishing a report of tbe result of the vaccination. The Government inspector found no sign or trace whatever of any symptoms of anthrax disease in any animal. The whole of the sheep look healthy and fresh, and the result is a conclusive proof of the efficacy of M. Pasteur's treatment for the cure of anthrax. Of oourse tbe Yankee can " boat creation." The Western Agriculturist, published at Quinoy, Illinois, says:— "Mr H H. Clark, Mendota, 111., who attended the Royal Agrioultural Show in England last year, and wrote ub an interesting account of it, writing us congratulations from Chicago, says: 'You can rest assured that the World's Fair at Chicago will be as the nun in resplendent beauty, compared to tbe nebula-like chow of the Royal at Windsor. In my opinion there is an average of finer stock in the United States than in Europe.'" The Außtralaßian Veterinary and Live Stook Journal, whioh was first started Borne eight years ago. but had to be dißoontinued for want of original articles and newß, has been revived. Judging from the appearance of the first number of the new edition this want will not be felt in future, as in addition to a good selection of extracts there are no less than seven original articles, in addition to reports of oases more or.'leßa pertaining to tbe veterinary science. The editors are Mr W. T. Kendall, M.R.0.V.5., ■ principal of the Melbourne Veterinary College ; Professor Goule, M.RO.V S.; Mr S. T. Cameron, M R.C.VS.} aadl Mr Forbes Burn, F.H.A.S. (Scotland). We wish our contemporary a successful career.

The Wellington A and P. Association, which wsb bo successfully inaugurated last year, has just issued its schedule for the coming season. A very attractive list of prizes are offered, and every inducement is held out for the making of a good display at the coming show.

The Railway Commissioners allege that the recent concessions made on tho rates for carriage of lime have proved of no benefit to farmers, because the Milburn Lime Company have now raised prices nearly 30 per cent., so that notwithstanding the reduction it cost farmers 2s per* ton more than before, and the amount saved by the reduction is transferred to the pockets of the company. Mr Grigg has collected all the horses, some 50 in number, he intends deporting by the next steamer for India. Another 10, however, selected by Mr Standish, will go from the Ashburton district. The steamer which leaves towards the end of the month, will be filled up by Mr Haggerfcy with horses from the North Island. — Christohurch Press. The Tek«po on her last trip to Sydney took away about 1800 tons of colonial produce, nrd 22 head of cattle. The Jubilee carried between 900 and 1000 tons of general produce. Both steamers had a considerable number of pasAt a meeting of the debenture-holders aud shareholders of the New Zealand Agricultural Company, held iv Londou on the 19th June, Admiral Mayne, who presided, explained ttnt the directors were of opinion that it would be v mistake to go into liquidation, but were of opinion that it would be better to continue the company for another nV,d period of three or four years, in the hope that meanwhile the stato of New Zealand would so improve as to increaso the value of the company's property. Iv round figures thoir assets amounted afc present to

[about £30,130. After providing for der benture interest, due on July 1, and otheexpenses, there remained a credit of £22,000. Mr G. Lindo, one of the directors, spoke in more hopeful terms of the possibility of resuscitating the company. The colony had certainly much improved 'during the past year, and the board were in great hopes that land would soon he saleable at better prices. The committee of the debenture-holders advised that tbe time for the payment of all tbe debentures of the company should be extended for three yearß,but the directors thought five years would be preferable the rate of interest to be fixed at 3 per cent. He concluded by moving a resolution modifying the the rights of the debenture-holders to that extent. A minority of the meeting, led by Mr Jenkins, advocated immediate liquidation. One shareholder went the. length of declaring that the proposition of the board was dishonest, but the energetio remonstrance of tbe^ chairman secured an instant withdrawal. Ultimately Mr Lindo's proposal was carried, the term of five years being adopted in preference to three.

Ex s. Elverina... Ex s. Hubbuok Ex a. Yoem&a ... Ex b. Eohuca ... Ex s. Blverina.,. Bxa. Yoeman.o Tins. ... 5,184 ... 37,248 ... 12,096 ... 16,176 ... 14,400 ... 5,661 90,768 Bejeol IT 205 87 6S 73 87 484