AGRICULTURAL AND PASTORAL NEWS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2102, 7 June 1894, Page 7

AGRICULTURAL AND PASTORAL NEWS.

We understand that a contract fcr a fortnightly service for the carriage of dairy produce to London for the enßuing season has been arranged between the National Dairy Association as shippers and the Shaw, Savill, and Albion Company and the New Zealand Shipping Company as carriers. The association is to have prior right to all space in cool chambers. Each alternate fortnight the companies will despatch steamers from Lyttelton, Port Chalmers, and Wellington. The National Dairy Association are to be congratulated on having made such an advantageous arrangement, and it should be an inducement to all shippers to join them, and we hope it will result in our port being better served by regular steamers than in the past. The excitement occasioned by the announcement of the reconstruction of the Canterbury Farmers' Co-operative Association (of Timaru) has been allayed (says the Lyttelton Times) by the publication of the chairman's statement. It is reported that the assets of the association amount to about £102,000, and the liabilities to about £55,000, leaving a surplus of £47,000. The assets include uncalled capital £17,000,

sundry debtors about £47,000, stock about £20,000, and freehold property about £17,000. The liabilities include an amount of about £32,000 (including bills under discount) due to the National Bank of New Zealand, and deposits amounting to about £21,000. There seems to be no doubt that the scheme of reconstruction will be readily adopted by the shareholders. Attention is directed to our advertising columns calling for tenders by a North Queensland firm of agents for freezing and otherwise manipulating 15,000 to 20,000 head of cattle per annum, at Port Hinchinbrook, near Cardwell. We are informed that Port Hinchinbrook is one of the best harbours in North Queensland, and admirably adapted as a site for extensive meat works. The country to the south, north, and west of the port for many miles being depastured solely by cattle. To encourage the export of meat the Queensland Government lately passed an act entitled "The Meat and Dairy Produce Encouragement Act." Under its provisions the Government will lend to any company or proprietor of meat works SO per cent, of the cost of all works and machinery for a period of of 10 years at 5 per cent, interest per annum. These advantageous conditions may induce some of our local meat experts to extend their operations to North Queensland, at the present time the market price for prime fat cattle and sheep there being about 60s per head for the former and 5s to 6s per head for the latter. Our Gore correspondent writes :— " Copyiog the example of its b'g brother of Otago, the Gore Agricultural and Pastoral Society is busy preparing for its first exhibition of grain, grasses, roots, &c. A very liberal programme has been provided. A dog trial near the township it arranged for, and considerable interest is already being manifested in the entries of roots in particular. It transpires that some o£ our iocally-grown produce is to be sent on to the Dunedin show, to be returned in time for the local affair on the 12th." The grass grub has made its appearance in the Dunstan district. This pest appears to have spread with surprising rapidity during the past year or two. Mr J. T. Lang, dairy expert, is on his way from Arckland to Donediu to visit the exhibition of dairy produce which takes place there on 7th and Bth prox. Mr Lang intends visiting the dairy factories in the south during his trip. He expects to be back in Auckland in about a fortnight or three weeks. The benefits of newspapers publicly manifest themselves in curious ways. Some time ago Mr West, of Napier, made a trial shipment of potatoes to England. The fact of the shipment and the results of it were both declared in this paper. As one result, Mr West has just received a letter from a large firm in Samoa, from which the following are extracts: — "Having ships of war in these waters causes a great

demand for potatoes, onions, butter, cheese, &c, and seeing a paragraph about potatoes you sent to England, we are induced to order, as a trial shipment, one ton good potatoes. . . . We are of opinion that the colonial producers should be able to compete successfully with the California shippers, as what they send here are seldom of the best quality, but are generally old and decayed. . ." ." This suggestive note should stimulate some other enterprising men. — H.B. Herald. Under the heading " Management of Shows —Views of a Successful New Zealand Stockbreeder," the Australasian Pastoralists' Review says:— "For the last eight years Mr K. B. Ferguson, of Waitati, near Dunedin, New Zealand, has been a regular exhibitor at the metropolitan shows of the Royal Agricultural Society of New South Wales. He is a distinguished breeder in his own colony, and the Ayrshire cattle he takes across with him every year to Sydney are always welcome. Nearly all take prizes, and, subsequently, sell to advantage. During a chat with our reporter at Moore Park this Easter he expressed his opinion that the exhibits of Ayrshire and Jersey cattle were better than he had seen at the Sydney shows for the last seven years ; but he was surprised at the meagre entries of Durhams, and he could not help noticing that the New South Wales breeders of beef were going backward, even from the position they held last year. The metropolitan show should be the leading one in New South Wales, and he could not understand why the Booietydid not receive more encouragement from breeders of stock, particularly of shorthorns. As to dairy cattle, however, the society was greatly at fault in admitting entries of stook that showed no breeding whatever. There were some cowa exhibited which ought not to have been at the show at all. Another matter with which he was not satisfied was the postponement of the judging on the first day. The web weather was no excuse. At Wellington, on November 15, it was a very bad day, and yefc the judging was carried on. He had visited the leading shows in the old country and in New Zealand, and had exhibited at them while rain was falling, and there never was a postponement because some exhibits had not come to hand. It was particularly distressing to an owner of milch caws to have a postponement, for he always took care to have his exhibits 'fit' at the time arranged, and could not expeot to get them up to the same pitch after a postponement. The judging of the cattle could have been carried on all through the first day as well as it was on the second day. In reply to a question, Mr Ferguson said he was quite satisfied with the work done by the judges. At Christchurch he, had obtained five first and two second prizes ; at Wellington, six firsts ; and he had been almost as successful at the Sydney show," A report has been telegraphed that the proprietors of a flour mill in Minneapolis have contracted with the Elevator Company for 3,250,000 bushels of wheat to be delivered within four months, the terms being cash on delivery. This is regarded as the largest cash transaction in flour ever made. At the annual meeting of the Waimate Agricultural Society the Secretary stated that the bank overdraft was £95, but it would be reduced next month to £70. The prize money given at the last show was £140, being an increase of £20 on the amount given the previous year, and the income had not increased in proportion. Some discussion ensued about the propriety of holding the show this year, but most of the members thought it would be unwise to discontinue it for one year. The question was left over until August, when a meeting will be held to arrange the programme. The number of farm sales announced to take place in Lincolnshire at the present time is without precedent, and there have never previously been so many occupations changing hands as at Lady day this year. Even this does not fully represent the unsettled state of the agriculturists, for it is stated that hundreds of farmers who gave notice to quit have, in consequence of reductions in rent and other concessions, been induced to stay on, landlords preferring to make a sacrifice in the matter of rent rather than run the risk of losing a good .tenant and with a prospect of their land being unlet. There has been "a chiel" among us taking notes in the person of Mr Charles W. Kent, of the London Furriers' Association, and under the headings " Walling out the Rabbits," " A Mighty Brick Barrier to Enclose New South Wales," the San Franoisco Chronicle has printed them. According to this report, the rabbit question "has come up before the Government again, and a bill is now before the Sydney Legislature asking for a vote to build a brick wall entirely around the agricultural boundary of the colony of New South Wales. Rabbits will not burrow lower than 2£f t, and it is proposed to sink the wall to that limit depth. The wall being once built, a general extermination of rabbits within that enclosure will be commenced and carried through. The other colonies will watch the experiment with great interest, and if it succeeds will probably follow suit. Such a course would ronfine the rabbits to the great Australian bush, in whose sandy deserts they would soon die out ! ! ! "—Australasian Pastoralists' Review. A station owner near Tapanui offers a reward of £100 for the conviction of any person or persons who have stolen any of his sheep, or who may steal such during the next 12 months. The Winton correspondent of the Southland Times writes : — " Over 100 persons were present at the trial of Bennett's stump puller. The machine rests on two beams laid parallel on the ground, on which are raised a triangle of beams 18ft in length, from the top of which are suspended lever, fulcrum, cog wheel and chain, with two massive hooks to go under the spurs of the roots. When erected three men can move it about from stump to stump, but the assistance of a horse in doing so would of course expedite matters. At the trial the agents, unfortunately, had not the grappling hooks, and had to pass a chain completely under the root, : which, of course, took considerably longer to 1 do. They also laboured under the great disadi vantage of an over-abundance of water, the recent rain having pretty well flooded the lowlying ground on which the trial took place, and there appeared to ba no one present who thoroughly understood the working oE the machine. There is no doubt it proved itself immeasurably in advance of the old system of simple lever and fulcrum, and is complete in itself, and does nob require the assistance of a strong tree or stump to work the others from. At the trial it proved itself fully capable of raising complete stumps of from 20in to 40in in diameter with runners up to 9ft in length attached, and holding the mass suspended till all the earth was knocked out into the hole from which it was taken. By the use of horse power the stump can then be pulled so as to drop from the machine clear of the place from which it was taken, but even if dropped on the spot the hole should be fairly well filled up by the earth knocked out of the roots. Nofr> withstanding the very great disadvantaytu under which the agents laboured I understand the trial sufficiently convinced some prtsanfc of the merits of the conqueror at the Chicago Fair to enable the agent to sell two on the ground." (Continued on page 11.)