AGRICULTURAL AND PASTORAL NEWS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2803, 4 December 1907, Page 6

AGRICULTURAL AND PASTORAL NEWS.

The Nelson A. and P. enow commenced on Nov. 26 in splendid weather. There is a slight falling off in the number of entries, but the quality on the whole 13 superior to that of last year. Most of the awards in all sections wero taken by local exhibitors The Wilkie Estate cup, for most points in Ayrshires, was won by Mr Albert Gibbs, who has now won it two years in succession, and three times at intervals. A few years ago a farm on the Waimate Plains, Taranaki, changed hands at £28 10s an acre, a price that was at the time, considered excessive. la three or

r n'i__» Miutin Hi" "»m ' inmftrw y ort. of working the section sufficient to defray the total cost of farm and 6tock. This year he sold the place to the original owner for £40 an acre, and the latter states that he will not let it out of his hands again, even at £60 an acre. The goats which produce the milk for the famous Roquefort cheese hardly eves drink water, obtaining the moisture they require from the herbage. A North-east Warwickshire agriculturist named Johnson has just mowed a third crop of grass in a four-acre meadow. Two ricks from the same piece of land were harvested in July and August. To convince the sceptical about the excellence of New Zealand's boneless beef, Mo H. C. Cameron, Produce Commissioner, tested a shipment which arrived recently at Glasgow. In the presence of Dr Wright, one of the chief officers of the Health Department, the cases were opened and inspected, and the meat was found in firstclass condition.

Among the cows entered in the Jersey class at the Taranaki show was one which was recently cold by auction at Waiwakaiho for £10*.

"Writing from Wellington on 'Wednesday last, the correspondent of the Lyttelton Times says: — The manager of the Moumc« haki Experimental Station, Mr F. Gillanders, a man held in high esteem by the farmers in the southern districts of this island, has just returned from* a> private visit to Britain. Speaking of retail prices of meat at Home, Mr -Gillanders nid that when he was in Aberdeen Scotch lamb was selling at Is to Is Id, while the beat New Zealand lamb could be purchased at B£dAs to the. relative quality, he wae assured by one or two friends who used New Zealand meat that while the mutton of the Dominion was inferior to that of Britain they oould see no great difference between the lamb. New Zealand lamb, says Mr Gillanders, is undoubtedly getting * great name on the Home market, and stands supreme over all descriptions of the frozen article. The one drawback is that it often loses its identity owing to being sold as Home-grown, the deception being practised more in connection with lamb than with mutton. If British ©onsunrers desire to purchase New Zealand mutton they can do so in any of the large centre?; It is largely sold in a very fine shop In Aberdeen, where on several occasions Mr Gillanders purchased both New Zealand mutton and limb to present to friends. From the. way it cooked he was convinced that New Zealand meat is being landed on the Home market in as good a condition as possible. The only prejudice against frozen meat, which undoubtedly existed for a. long time, is absolutely dead 1 . At least Mr Gillanders heard nothing* whatever of it, and he talked New Zealand meat whenever he oould. "There is.' said Mr Gillanders, in conclusion, 'little fear of the market for New Zealand meat in Britain being overdone, as the price all which it can be retailed brings it within the reach of millions of purchasers who otherwise oould only have meat on high days and holidays." , " • A representative of the Wellington Post, who made a tour of the Hutt Valley to ascertain the position in, regard to the potato blight, says that the outlook is very dispiriting. One grower estimates his loss at £300. Another grower put all his eggs in one basket, or, rather, all h» money into potatoes, havingto pay one item of £50 for 1 rent alone. He Tegards himself as a ruined man, and he was careful to plant Up-to-Dates, a variety which, he says, was warmly commended' by the department. His fruitless efforts to save his crop. are described by his neighbours as heartbreakine. A settler of 50 years* residence m the valley states that the Up-to-Dafe is the potato most susceptible to the blight, and he believes that this variety brought the blight with it. His own losses he sets down at £200 or £300. Notwith«tan*ii* the fact that some yeare ago # potatoes realised only 3s per hundredweight, vet farmers, he sa-vs, were better off because tbi'v could always rely ut>on a-sgcod croi>. Mr T. G. Lilico, M.8.0.V.5.. who has been Government Veterinarian in South Canterbury for oome years, and also inspector at Smithfield freezing works an<f the Timaru abattoir, is to be transferred by the department to Hawke's Bay to a superior position. Mr Lilico has acted aa manager ac well as inspector of the abattoir, and in accenting his resignation of the managership— the Mayor and members of the Timaru Borough Council expressed regret at losinar him and appreciation of his services. The Mayor said that the council was greatly indebted to him for the avoidance of friction between the council and the butchers. # Hull (England) seems determined to no longer allow London and Liverpool to eclipse her in the handling of New Zealand produce. A file of reports which Mr T. E. Donne showed to a representative of the Wellington Post forcibly proves that Hull is bent on making the R"«ra "om these seas go to her ports. It claims that it serves a population of 10 millions, and has steamers going regularly every weelc to all near Continental ports, the Baltic, and Scandinavian ports. Hull is glowingly represented to be a very convenient tributing centre, with port charges erceedinglv low compared with Lqni don and Liverpool." An agent from Hull will soon be making a pilgrimage through New Zealand. . The straits to which Victorian pastoralists were put by the long-continued drousrnt was illustrated by the state of the markets at the Fleminsrton stockyards recently. Thousands of sheep and lambs were rushed forward from the parched country, and the Government cool stores were in consequence taxed beyond their capacity. There was no'ontlet for the sheep, for it was no good sending them back to the drouorhtetricken districts, and values, especially tot lambs, collapsed. The result was that otf November 2 Melbourne people were enabled to purchase cheap lamb for the Sunday's dinner. Carcase* were Bold by the thousands at 3s to 3s 6d, ard hundreds of householders bought prime huidquarters at Is each. During the last few weeks large numbers of sheep and latnba have been shipped from Melbourne to Tasmania to be topped up in the island State, where era^s is in abundance. The dreaded -potato bliarht has (Che Gi*» borne Times states) made its appearance in the Arai and Patutahi Valleys and some other parts of Poverty Bay. Mr E.J. West, a local expert, recommends spraying the potato crops with a solution consisting

Where food if scarce molasses should &• used with straw chaff to keep up the quality and quantity of milk all through th« winter. Kimmo *nd Blair supply it...,

' tpKfc of four parts bluestone, four parts lime, and 40 parts water. Taking into consideration the prevalence of blight, Mr West ex- . pressed the opinion that potatoes would rim to a high price this year. All persons with potato crops should spray at once. It was a suicidal policy to wait until the appearance of the blight, for it mightcome through and perhaps spoil the whole crop in one night. Many people did not properly know the blight when they saw it. They saw the tops getting brown, and concluded that it was time to dig, whereas really the crops had been attacked by blight. If infected tubers were found they should be burnt at once. The blight made its apnearanoe chiefly when wet weather succeeded a Tun of fine days, and Mr West notioed this in a marked, degree during the recent showery weather. Some people, said Mr West, were under the impression that potatoes planted on hill land would resist the blight, but he had found in his experience that such potatoes were as liable to blight as those on the flat. An area of 3829 acres of the well-known Springfield Estate, Ashburton, was 'auctioned ixi blocks on the 23rd ult., and sold for a total of £82,990 10s, an average of £21 lls lOd per acre. The sal© was the best held there for^many year*. Although close on half a million frozen lambs have been exported from Australia daring the last two months it should' not be thought (remarks the PastoralisTs' Review of November 15) that those connected with the trade are having & profitable season this year; in fact, as far as New South Wales, and to a certain extent Victoria, are concerned, just the opposite is the case. The dry autumn and winter experienced over a. large area of these faro States so affected the 'condition of the lambs that a. large proportion of the 500,000 shipped v were second or ,even lower grade. Some go so far' as -to say that many of them should never have been exported at all. they were so poor. Then the dry spell th*is year has made it necessary to move a tremendous quantity of stock to the markets or in search of pastures, and this has accentuated the usual difficulties with regard to obtaining sufficient railway rolling stock to carry lambs to the freezing works. It has also caused^ the killing season to come on with a rush, with the Tesult that the accommodation at the. freezing works has been more than usually taxed. The last straw has been the new Federal tariff. This has so increased the eoS of material that several of the freezing works have raised their charges for treating stock. Some of these burdens fall on the exporters, but naturally they, as much as possible, have passed them on to the producers by lowering the prices paid for lambs purchased. However, we do not wish H to be -understood that the lamb trade in the whole of Australia is suffering a set-back. The season in South Australia end the south and west of Victoria has been reasonably good, and the lambs exported from there are in splendid condition. TSyen in the districts worst off the eet-^ck is only temporary, and given fair rai^ a prosperous season may confidently b*> expected next year. The following items of interest are from the Pastoraliste' Review of November 15: Earl Carrington, speaking at High Wycombe on the falling off in the number of horses . bred in Great Britain, said the maintenance of the horse supply was a national question of great importance. Ten thousand fewer foals were born this year than last.— There are prospects of a record harvest in the Argentine. Careful inyestifation encourages tbe estimate. of a yield, of ,500,000 tons of wheat as compared with 3|01D0,000 last year, and 1,500,000 tons of linseed as against a previous output of 750iW0 tons.— The Minister of Customs has decided to allow Australian wheat already shipped for export to be reimported free , of duty, provided it has not left the ships bottoms and has not changed hands. An ( endeavour is being made to obtain an accurate estimate of the quantity at present in i ships in Australian waters.— The f^PP*: ' tnerrie wool clip, which was recently sold by Dalgety and Co. (Ltd.) in Melbourne, •was shorn, classed, and scoured by Australian aborigines, carted by v Afghan camel teams to HeKftsP* in Stfuth Australia, thenoe by rail ftr^ort Augusta, and eventually by steamer to Melbourne. Nappajnerrie ie situated in the Thargommdah district of Queensland.— Mr Abe Bailey, a. Band magnate, in the' course of a recent interview in London, said that agriculture and mining were unprecedentedly flourishing in the Transvaal. Sufficient native labour would be forthcoming to. supersede gradually Chinese labour. The introduction on his farm of well-bred sheep from Australia and of English cattle and horses xrap a great 6uccess.— Grasshoppers and locusts are doing more harm in New South Wales this year than ever before. Vast areas of country are black with them. S»afitoralists who have wire-netted their Tuns, and got the weather side of th© rabbits, now find a pest that even wire gauze will not keep out. r From the Macquarie comes reports that the scourge have destroyed; every green thing, and even eat curtains and boots in the houses. All sorts of remedies are being offered to the man on the land, but it looks as if (as Jn Argentina) an organised war must be made on the scourge if untold loss is not to accrue.— Dr Hwood Mead, who has been appointed by the Victorian Government aa chairman of th© Irrigation and FWater Supply Commission, arrived in- Melbourne on the 6th inst. Dr Mead has

been chief of the irrigation and drainage investigation in the Department of Agriculture in the United States, and has been concerned in the irrigation schemes of a great many of the States. He was also the consulting engineer responsible for the Canadian-Pacific railway's recent remarkably successful irrigation scheme at Calgary. Dr Mead will supervise the whole of the Victorian irrigation schemes, the most important of which will probably be the locking of the- Murray. This work is to be- carried out jointly by the Victorian, New South Wales, and South Australian Governments, and will take several years to complete. It is understood that it will' be commenced in the near future, commissions having been appointed to deal with it by each of the three States. Professor M'Gill, of the University of Montreal, Canada, believes that the yield of Manitoba wheat can be increased 100 per cent, without destroying the quality. He is an authority on heredity, and he feels that a new epoch in plant life is about to transform farming conditions throughout the wheat-growing world, and that it will prove that the hard wheat of Canada is not due to climatic conditions, but to the nature of the seed itself. The Canadian wheat, while of a smaller head, is superior to the wheat grown in England by the reason of its hard quality. It ' makes flour that produces light bread, while the English wheat lacks that hard quality essential to good wheat. The Agricultural Department at Cambridge University is endeavouring to unite the best qualities of the two kinds of wheat, so that, with a larger head, the yield per acre would be 100 per cent, greater. The National Potato Society, tbe dulJ of the potato boom (says the Field of October 5), has not long survived its parent, at least in a truly national sense. Even when potato prices were at their highest it was difficult to enlist the support of the public, and the show conducted by the society was never a financial success. Last year, when it was evident that the society could not again undertake the financial responsibility of another London exhibition, it was decided, by the committee to accept the invitation of the Wye Agricultural College to hold its show there, as expenses would then be practically nil. The exhibition, which was held on Wednesday, was in no sense national, and th© display compared unfavourably with former displays, whilst the. attendance was almost entirely local. Whether there is room for such a society, or at least for such a show, seems a doubtful point, but the management hardly seemed to make much effort to secure th© support of large growers, without whose aid the show cannot live up to its name. In addition to potatoes, vegetables have now been added to the schedule, and the exhibition is almost entirely * gardeners' affair. Mr Ben Ashton took the Llewelyn and Carter-Findlay Cups, for th© best exhibit of potatoes, to Lancashire. In the afternoon a meeting was held whksh was addressed by Principal Duns) an, who dwelt upon the facilities afforded for misrepresentation in the potato trade. He referred to the work of the society in grouping existing varieties, and doing away with synonyms and in examining new varieties. and satisfying themselves they were what was claimed for them; indeed, this is perhans the branch of the society's work of which most, was expected, for the field is great, and for this reason, if no other, a strong national society is desirable. Unless, however, the society is thoroughly representative and strong enoucrh-to carry practically all potato-raisers with it. its efforts in \ this resnect can be productive of little j good. Principal Danstan contended further thatvthe society should have its scientific and bommercW side to keop members in touch with points of practical and scientific importance. ""-