NORTH OTAGO FARM NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2817, 11 March 1908, Page 21

NORTH OTAGO FARM NOTES.

(From Our Own Correspondent.) OAMARU, March 5. This district has been favoured this week ' with the finest fall of rain experienced since last September. Rain gauges in the town have registered a fall of about 2in within a few days, and the heart of the grazier ;s; s glad. The past few months have been as tiying* as this part of the colony has ever experienced, there being an absolute deI ficiency of water on the surface of the 1 soil and in the subsoil. The flush of feed i which the spring rains brought has enabled stock to come through the summer well, but the prospects for the autumn and winter were very depressing. Many settlers were casting water for household use as well as foi cattle, and streams of water that had larely, if ever, been known to fail were becoming a succession of pools which, with continued heat, would soon have been a danger to health. Thi- week's rain, however, enables everyone to contemplate the next few months with some equanimity, if not with confidence The rain has had ample time to soak well into the subsoil, and farmers will be able to get on with their ploughing for autumn and winter sowings of grain, and graziers can look for a sufficiency of feed to carry sheep and cattle well through the winter. Green crops sown late to ensurewinter feed and turnips will materially im- J prove now, while gras? has time to make fair growth providing frosts do not comvnence too early. In fact, already the country is beginning to don a robe of different tint to that of last week. | Stock were in keen demand at Otekaike, for the losses and sacrifices which had to be made during the drought of 1907 had never been recovered, and farmers found themsehes suddenly confronted with the expectation of plenty of feed for the winter. They therefore brightened up at the bigfale and, outbidding the btr sis from Southland an ; Canterbury, succeeded in retainino- mo«t of the sheep in the district. Two, four and six tooth ewes brought quite 4a more than ha« recently been ruling, oidev ewe« a couple of shillings more, and lam hs about the same relative advance. Simi'arly the cattle improved— fat bullocks by £2, two and three-year-old steers by 20s, ?nd yeaihng steers and heifers by 15-=. The rain, comma as it did the clay before tho sale mint have represented not Ipss than 4>SW>U to Messrs R. Campbell and Sons, and it is satisfactory to be able to reflect that they are not the only participants in the rise— every grazier now and throughout tue winter will be the better off for it.