AGRICULTURAL AND PASTORAL NEWS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3384, 22 January 1919, Page 11

AGRICULTURAL AND PASTORAL NEWS.

Mr Stead, Mayor of Invdrcargill, informed the members, of the Technical College Board that the most up-to-date dairy .in New Zealand was to bo found at the experimental farm conducted by the Prisons • Department at Invercargill. Most of the labourers, he said, were conscientious obi jectors, and their hearts were in their work, the quality of which was excellent. Tie- further stated that many of the workers 'were themselves worth thousands of pounds, ;and were looked upon by the authorities :as being genuine "Conchies." They worked ot'ten; from 5 a.m. until nearly 8 p.m., but their; labour was congenial, and they had no faults to .-find. - , . i

i On; the charge of, conspiracy to defraud '.the State. Wheat Advisory Board, seven imen ; were arrested in Sydney. The . accused include Wheat 'Board; employees'and a railway yard toaster. The value of the ;wheat known v to be missing is estimated [at between £ISOO and,£2ooo';. but it is believed that /further investigations - yriti dis;oliQse that the' Wheat Board has been irobbed of' hundreds of tons of grain. .Suspicion was aroused through the failure of a [truckj of wheat to reach its destination. It was subsequently found that the wheat had been purchased by an, Enfield merchant for about £IOO. The man from whom it •was bought gave the name of Williams.

I The Scientific American states .that one [of the farmer's _ most ipopular. War-time labour-saving devices is the shocker machine, [recently invented. This -machine is estijmated to have displaced more than 1500 frired harvest hands the first year. It is [attached, in ;tho rear pf; the reaper: and binder, 'catches the bundles, forms them linto a shock of from seven'to 11 bundles jeach, and firmly sets this: : on the' ground. | A Maeterton resident Vis now ' digging a phenomenal crop of Early Regent potatoes. Each root averages from 25 to 30 tubers, and one root counted on' Saturday totalled 35 of good size. Our correspondent at Becks states.'that there arc- some excellent -crops of wheat and oats in the Lauder -, district. Straw is. not long, but heads are .well filled .and.should yield well. ■ '. The Now Zealand Bairy' Association recently distributed the sum of £130,419 T6slOd among its suppliers. This amount represented payment'for 1,904;9401b of butter* fat supplied during the month of November. . The potato crops in some parts of the ;district are .affected by.: blight, >Bufc there is a difference of opinion as to the! character of the visitation (states' tlie Oamaru Mail). What is- known a& th© Irish blight usually comes-with hot,; moist weather, and there has been little or none of that this year. -The'weather has rather been on the wintry side, . If; Irish blight ■has appeared at all it is confined to a very small area, for the crops are reported to be generally looking very well, and promise a good yield. Mr C. Branigan, Government Fields Inspector, informed an Ashburton Guardian reporter that his investigations up to the present showed that the disease in wheat was' prevalent in most parts of the. county, but it was reassuring to notice that it was only .in isolated instances that the disease was established in an intensified. form. ■What further developments would take place" before the crops were cut he was not prepared 1 to. state. The Cromwell Argus says that although no definite information is,available, the results of shearing on many small holdings, disclose • fair losses, in some instances as, a result of the recent hard winter.

! ''The rabbits in our' part) of the country are'suffering- with the 'flu,' and the epijdemic is 'doing as much good as shiploads of poison," said a King Country rabbit in: spcctor to a contemporary the other day. The experiments which are being made at Mamaku in connection with bush sickness among stock ,were referred to recently by the Minister of Agriculture, the Hon. W. D. S. MacDonald. He stated'that the research had been so far successful that it Avas now possible to grazo and fatten cattle in the district throughout the year. _ The present object, wat to find out thc> minimum amount of top-dressing which the land required, and that would necessarily take time. ®

I It is reoorted that Mr G. H. Perry's farm at Upper Plain, near Masterton, ha 3 been eold for £lO5 per acre, which is among the highest prices paid for farm land in the dominion.

Turhip-grqwing for.seed is evidently• a money-making proposition. We are informed that,.Mr R. ,K. Smith,, of Tarras, netted £2ooo' from turnip seed off a 14-acre crop. The present price of turnip seed is 4s od per lb, as compared with the pre-war price of 7d per lb.

; An. Oamaru resident, who passed through the Totara district the other day, says he has rarely seen the crops looking better in any previous year. The season seems to have suited Totara, and the wheat crops especially will, with fine weather for tho ripening, give an excellent yield. | A pen of five well-conditioned sheep, tho property of Mr J. Snell, butcher, of Waihi, mysteriously disappeared recently and the matter was placed in the hands of tho police. On Saturday morning last the search resulted in. the police locating the. sheep in a paddock a few miles away from the abattoirs, where they had been placed ready for slaughtering. No information has been forthcoming to show how the sheep got out of tho pen, or how they arrived at the paddock where they were found.