SOUTHLAND AGRICULTURAL NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3510, 21 June 1921, Page 12

SOUTHLAND AGRICULTURAL NOTES.

(From Oub Own Correspondent.) The fine weather in the last week of May and the first week of June has very much freshened up the pastures for this time of the year,, and also helped to keep the sheep from eating the turnips too freely, which will make them last much longer, and will increase the prospect of teed generally. If the spring be not too backward, there may be some relief afforded from the depress.ng influence of the stock market. Much may depend for a general improvement or a better tone upon the amount of feed early in the season. Those who were late in getting their thrashing done have had splendid weather for finishing up. The owners of traction engines _ just_ got their thrashing plant drawn in when drain ploughing brought them into demand. There is some draining being done, although nothing like what was done in some previous years. The ground to be drain-ploughed is mostly lea or grass land requiring renewing or for cropping purposes. Although the price of oats and chaff has advanced a little, and there is a better demand, there does not yet seem to be much lea- ground turned over. Farmers for various reasons are afraid to put 100 much in oats. The sum total of costs in growing oats is out of all reason, compared to the uncertainty of market values. Unless expenses are reduced very shortly it will limit the area going into crop. The cost of thrashing alone is far beyond what it should be, and other expenses, exclusive of the prices to be paid for manure where required, makes it almost prohibitive. It is questionable, all the same, if oats are not in short supply for Dominion requirements as a whole.

The rabbits do not seem to be so numerous as they have been, and trappers are taking- every advantage of the favourable weather. The effectiveness of rabbit poisoning depends very much upon the weather and the suitability of the baits used. Phosphdrised grain has been more generally used than anything else, but arsenic and strychnine have also been tried, and been fairly successful. Any mixture which does not too readily ferment and sour takes well. Among others, and the most generally used, are grain and flour, mixed with arsenic in water. Also grain and chaff in arsenic and water, and a sufficient quantity of sugar is always required. Apples and strychnine or jam and strychnine laid in furrows or freshly turnedup soil take well. Fumigating with bisulphide of carbon during the summer, when the ground is hard and dry, is fairly effective, and more particularly in breeding warrens. The Southland freezing works have been very busy of late. The closing down of the works within a definite period has kept the lamb buyers very busy to get as many as .possible put. through. The mild weather, being conducive to fattening, has allowed more lambs to be got away than was at one time expected, and lambs are not the best paying property on a farm. A large party of Southland cattle-breeders intend going to the North Island to attend the meetings of various breeding societies in connection with the Palmerston North Show. Some of them are going with .the purpose of making purchases at the various sales, chiefly of Ayrshire, making Shorthorns. and Freisians. It bodes well for Southland and the dairying that a keener interest, is being taken in the most popular milk producers. There may not be many new factories going up, as the cost of building and eauipinn- is still so very high, but there will be a. considerable increase in the number of suppliers. Many of the present suppliers will also be increasing their herds, and increased production bv improved feeding gives promise of a much larger output, both in butter and cheese. The cheese market nt present may not be so promising, but what is going on to the market is being absorbed. At the Bluff stores the number of crates at this time is only fractional to what it was at this time last. year, there being only somewhere between 10,000 and 20.000 crates to three times that quantity at the same period lari year. There is a considerable amount, of speculation as to what the price to he na : d for butter-fat will be next season. While some believe thev rnnv not expect less than Is 6d or even 2s a lb, the less sanguine, though not pessimistic, are milling up tho : r minds to have to accent poss'hlv less than Tio.T of the last two veers’ prices.