PUERUA

Otago Witness, Issue 2317, 28 July 1898, Page 29

PUERUA

July 26.— That needful and fertilising agent rain fell some tune or other in every 24 hours from June 19 to July 19, a fSil of snow once or twice being a trifling variation. Hard frosty nights now impede all ploughing, frequently until noon, and comparatively little is yet done in preparing for spring sowing in consequence. Given Uvotuable weather, however, all hands and the cook will be driving ahead as fast as possible. TußNirs and Sheep.— l henr of some shortage in tho necessary root elsewhere, but round about here the crop is really good, and sufficient for all requirements. With regard lo sheep, it strikes me that some of those who parted with their young sheep in the autumn and kept their old ones will find they would have acted more wisely vico versa. It is more than open to doubt whether the custom so largely prevailing of selling ofT the pick of the young stock for freezers is judicious in the long run. Abler pens have made the. lemark before, more than once or twice. Old ewes as breeders deteriorate in constitution, weight, and quality of wool, and make but poor mothers. Their lambs necessarily suffer. Stocks are so light, now in the North, that judging from what 1 saw when thare in the autumn, a demand for young sheep is sure lo arise, that in, if feed makes its appeaianee.

Madb in Germany— A new importation of the " undesirable immigrant " type is an epidemic of German measles — inferior in quality, as most German productions are, to the true British article, but no respecter of persons. It attacks the strongest man as readily as the delicate woman. Indeed, if it has a preference at all, it is for robust specimens of the masculine gender. If the patient is prudent, he keeps his bed for three days, takes a little cream of tartar, and drinks hot tea by the pint. He then stops by his fireside for an equal term. Some patients reject all this, their national instincts leading them to prefer the absorption of whisky ad lib ; but tho more simple beverage is just as effective in working out a cure, if tho patient will periodically swallow not less than half a gallon a day Highly imaginative minds affirm that the disecse owes its appearance to the large consumption oi German sausages in the colony, but the idea is as far-fetched as Darwin's earthworms and the fertilisation of clover heads, although haidly so well connected.

Land. — Some good-sized properties have changed hands in Southland lately— not, however, under the aiupices of our much-belauded Government, but presumably upou the conviction on the part, of the vendors that the conversion of large freeholds into £ s. d. is likely to ■prove more profitable than growing wool iv an ever downward market. Beyond question, ten farms of 300 acres each, are of gi eater wealth to the country than one of 3000. The extent of land under crop next year will probably exceed any former reend. Rabbits.— Their glory is departed. Persistent trapping has broken tho back of the nuisance. JS T ofTa twentieth of the numbers of a few years ago is now to be seen. The curious part of the business is the violent dislike of the Rabbit department to trapping, and their insistence on the adaption of poison, whirh tho rsobit. is now too wide-awake to accept. The opposition ol Ihe noble, army of rabbit inspectors cau originate but. from one motive: they sec thnt when bunny's day is fairly over, " Othello's occupation's gone."