MANDEVILLE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2273, 23 September 1897, Page 25

MANDEVILLE.

September 20. — The weather during the past month has been exceedingly patchy for agricultural pursuits. Our farmers, however, h ive taken advantage of every shining hour, and cons' queutly there is a large area of wheat, oat?, and bailey already town, and should the we.ither hold good for another fortnight this class of work will be completed in this district, and from present indications I think that we sh-ill have a, very favourable and a good RrowiDg seas>OE. Land Sales.— A few weeks ago Messrs Wright, Stephenson, and Co. sold a few choice fai ms on behalf cf the New Z^a'and Agricultural Company. Mr James Sheed, of Tapauui, is ihe lucky P'uehaser of the Poiut paddock near MandeviUe, on which he intends to res>de. This property, which comprises 600 acres, is considered the most convenient and the best all-round farm on the agricultural estate, and I wish Mr Sheed every success in hi"? new undertaking 1 . Rabbits.— This is an evergreen subject iv this district, and for the past 14 years the business of extirpating the pest has been exp'oited by some o[ the cleverest exp-rts on earth. That, at least, v. r< >s their own opinion before they staitcJ, but when they were a while at the job they must have felt how, insignificant and impotent a man's ingenuity is whea pitted ogainst bunny's fecundity. The first who came along had invented a machine for mixing phosphorised whsat. He had a dozen Chinamen to assist him in turning out the poisoned grain. When they got tho thing fairly staited the huge cylinder which contained the mixture exploded, covering the whole party with a seething masa of liquid fire. The (Xpert jumped into a large mud hole and wallowed in it for a couple of hours, whereas the unfortunate Chinamen took to their he^ls and have never yet returned for their cheques. The next man was an inventor of a patent fumigating machine, which was supposed to generate tuflicient carboaic acid gas to suffocate all the rabbits in Southland in the short space of six months, at the en-l <if which time he had intended to ent?r into a contract with the New South Wales Government to clear that colony of all their rabbits in two years. The Agricultural Company gave him a statt here, and in three months' time the rabbits, assitted by the manager, ran him clean off the ruu. Next came the man wi!h the patent wire-netting trap. I have seen a couple of teams of bullocks hauling loads of these novelties up country, where they were to be securely imbedded in the mouth of each rabbit-hole. It sometimes took a whole load of traps to finish off one lar^e burrow. And to think that any wideawake rabbit would be silly enough to walk light into that strange thing! They did nothing of the kind - they simply scraped their way jn and out of the warren close alongside of the trap. I suggested to one station manager that he should order a f<-.w million of bricks and employ a gang of bticklayers to accompany the trapper, but he did not seem to take the hint very kindly. Then came the loxa man, the yollaid C ake man, the green patch of parsley man, and >et bunny reigned supieme. Ten years ago I advocated in the Witness the use of the steel trap as the best means of keeping the pest within bounds, and that tr«ippsr« shoiild be properly remunerated for their work winter and summer alik°, and I find, now that exporters are paying 3d per head for rabbits, that this old-fashioned scheme _wol-ks like a cbarnj, fot really the rabbits were never so scarce in this district as they Siem to be at presett t.