SOUTHLAND AGRICULTURAL NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2008, 18 August 1892, Page 8

SOUTHLAND AGRICULTURAL NOTES.

(Feom Ouk Own Correspondent.)

We have had a fortnight's fine weather. The first week there were a few hard frosts, but since then it has been mild as well as fine, and now the willow trees are shooting out their young leaves, and there is a noticeable spring growth in the grass where not overstocked. Some of the early sown wheat has greatly benefited by the drier weather, and is now looking well. Very few oats have been sown yet. Everyone is in fear of being much earlier than his neighbour, for the small birds are so numerous that they pretty well " scoff" all the grain of the first ripe crop or two. The two freezing works in operation — one at the Bluff, the other at Ocean Beach — have put through nearly all the available sheep suitable for freezing, and, as I have said btfore, the keen competition between these two companies must have deteriorated the quality of tho mutton sent to London from here. Local butchers have to be contented with buying old fat ewes and suchlike sheep as arc not at present in demand for freezing. Fat cattle have not yet been affected in value by the freezing works, but their day too must surely come like it has with the sheep ; and though fat cattle seem at present plentiful enough — rather too much so — for local consumption, one cargo, or less, of frozen beef sent away from here would cause a boom in the cattle market. The number of cattle iv the country is a mere flea-bite compared to the number of sheep.

Arbor Day t did not receive much attention in Southland, though it was almost a perfect day for tree planting. Some of the public bodies planted a few trees, but I do not think the number would average one tree for each individual who would style himself a public man — nor anything like one tree for every thousand that will be cut down in Southland between this and Arbor Day 1893.

This has, upon the whole, been a wet but mild winter for Southland. I may say our own climate this srason compares favourably •with that of North Otago and Canterbury. We have had several visitors from those parts inquiring for land, and they seem favourably impressed with our district as a whole, and several sales of improved and unimproved properties have taken place at prices which I hope and think will prove satisfactory to purchasers. House agents and auctioneers say there are no empty houses in Invercargill, and that population here is rapidly increasing. Our commercial men delight in calling attention to the Jarge increase of ejepor^s aud trade generally at

the Bluff port, and if good times have not yet arrived they are very near.

Oats have risen (the Southland tanners like growing oats better than wheat) in the face of the Australian ports being practically closed against us, and we are told that fortunes await us in dairy-farming whenever we like to go thoroughly into this industry.