OUR CANTERBURY AGRICULTURAL BUDGET.

Otago Witness, Issue 3672, 29 July 1924, Page 14

OUR CANTERBURY AGRICULTURAL BUDGET.

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

SOME BITTER. WEATHER. Up to a week ago the most striking feature cf the present winter was its mildness. Then uie weather changed and there followed what is easily the coldest week of the winter. In Christchurch and on Banks Peninsula there was some stormy days with bitter wind, rain, hail, sleet, and snow. The stormy weather came off the sea, but did not penetrate inland, and a dozen miles away from the city, where it raged, dust was actually blowing up behind travelling motor ears, with the sun shining. Monday cf this week was one of the roughest days experienced in Christchurch for many years past, and it snowed in the middle of the day for a couple of hours, but the ground was too wet for it to lie. On some of the hills of the Peninsula there was as much as eight inches of snow. In the hill districts along the ranges there was a fall of sncw in the early part of the week. Naturally the effect has been marked upon the stock, and the wintry days since have brought home to many that the spring is not here, though a month back there were many spring bulbs in the flower gardens. One swallow does not make a summer, and a few spring Powers do not make the spring. THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH. Burns is hopelessly out of date. His lilting verses picturing the newly-turned furrow, the happy ploughman and his numerous bairns, will have to be revised. Many proverbs will have to go by the board. “Man must plough with such oxen as he hath,” for instance, will have to be rewritten. It will run this way; shrewd farmers plough with the contraptions their implement-makers send them. The ploughman of to-day is a bright-locking young man in blue over-alls. Gray, too, will have to be twisted a little. The ploughman does not “homeward plod his weary way.” In days of yore he may have left the world to darkness and the poet musing at Poges. The metamorphosed tiller oi the soil steps off the seat of his tractor, turns off the juice, and jauntily saunters home to tea with his mind on what time he win be able to get down to the dance at. the local sohoolhouse, and not on the care and feeding of his team. Ills working denims will not he coloured by Mother Earth. Maculated they may be by odd spots of oil. The country bootmaker will have to scrap bis stock of hob-nails. Tractor ploughing will admit of box calf. Hobnails and box calf are anathema. The old order changeth. The ploughman's worries will not be greasy heels and sere, shoulders, but of sooty plugs and water in the petrol. Who knows, the farm labourer of the future may be eligible to join the Engineers’ Pinion. The “cookie” of the plains, when he advertises for a new man a. few years hence, may ask for a graduate of the Canterbury College School of Engineering. The writing was on the wall—or more properly on the paddock—at Doyleston on Friday. It was traced with hundreds of unrie-ht strokes across a paddock lent by Mr W. Bowis to the Ellesmere Agricultural and Pastoral Association for the purpose of the annual ploughing match. Yes! Probably there were more than upright strokes: there were occasional pot hooks noticeable, and an odd wavy line, but the best of the tractor ploughing compared very favourably indeed with the best that the artists with horse-drawn implements accomplished in a neighbouring paddock of the same farm. To win at a ploughing match a competitor has to be an artist with delicacy of touch and eye. The ocasion was unique in that it was the first time that, at a gathering of the kind, the “iron horses” were provided with classes. And there was a good response from the machinery firms, and from the farmers in the district that have purchased tractors recently. In the Ellesmere Countv there are a large number of these machines that promise to relegate the farm horse, if not to the limbo of forgotten things, then to a minor part in the cast of farm characters. No fewer than 16 entries were received in the tractor classes, representing four makes of machines, and 14 set to work when the flag was hoisted. The paddock resembled an aerodrome take-off ground on a. morning when big business in bombing was forward, so far as noise was concerned, end the smell of newly-turned earth was neutralised by the fumes of monoxide gas. Some of the drivers of the machines sacrificed efficiency in work to speed, and suffered consequently in that they did not appear m the prize-list. Others were good engineers, but poor ploughmen. Congratulations may be handed to the association controlling the gathering for having organised something well abreast of the times, and which proved a big drawn Farmers and others came along distances to the trials, and in both the tractor and the horse classes considerable interest was manifested. The awards in the tractor classes were as follows: —Class F. tractor, three furrow, coulter cut. standard cast shares; prizes £4 and gold medal, £3. £2 (nine entries) : Allan Bowis (Jay. Wright and Co’s Fordson tractor), 1; C. Hight (F. G. Frampton’s Fordson tractor). 2; C. Bowis (W. Bowis’s Fordson tractor). 3. Best feering: W. ft. Kingsl-urv (Austin tractor) 1. 0. Hight. 2. Best finish: Allan Bowis 1, 11. G. Overton (Fordson tractor) 2. Class G. tractor, four-furrow or more, coulter cut, standard cast shares; prizes £4 and '-old medal. £3, £2 (seven entries) : G. W. R. Osborne (Peterbro’ tractor), 1; ,T Whisker ''Mura Bros.’ Peterbro’ tractor), 'c ■ Gilbert Brav (B. Mc-Eachlan’s Peterbro’ tractor). 3. Best feering: G. W. R. Osborne. Best finish: J. Whisker 1, G. Bray 2. MEAT SUPPLIES PLENTIFUL. Not many entries are coming forward to the country sales at the present time, and some of the auctions in the small centres must he a dead loss to firms conducting them. Many sales at this time of year do not return sufficient commission to pay the travelling expenses of the auctioneers officiating, yet any proposal to drop some of these sales for the off months of the year stirs up a hornets’ nest in the community affected, and often the most noisy critics of a saving being made in this connection are the men who are rarely seen at the saleyards. At Adding!on on Wednesday the supply of mutton sufficed to fill the requirements of the trade, and the beef did much more than this, in spite of the heavier buying of this class of meat by butchers with the advent of colder weather, and the competition of traders removed from the area

usually supplied from Addington. It is unfortunate that the supply cannot be better regulated than is the case at present, with the entries coming from all parts of the northern half of the island and from the North Island too. Good cattle are too often sacrificed, and the probabilities are that there will he a real shortage in a couple, of months’ time. On this occasion there was a further fall of from £1 to £1 5s a head, and brought the price of good prime beef down to 30s and thereabouts. The best-priced bullock of tne day was an animal that sold at £2l, and was from a consignment sold on account of Mr F. G. Birdling (Birdling’s Flat), and was certainly' one of the cheapest big beasts sold for some time. A market was struck when the traders that buy this class were well supplied with them. The proportion of the entry supplied by the North Island was fairly heavy, running to about 10 trucks of cattle. EWES FROM THE NORTH.

It is rather late in the season for breeding ewes to be shipped from the North Island, but during the week a consignment of over 2000 was brought down by the Atua form the Gisborne district; but the owners were rather disappointed with the figure offered for them on Wednesday, and

they were passed after the bidding went to 38s. They were four, six, and eighttoothed Romney cross ewes, due to lamb early’, and 200 were in the pen with an option on 1500 of the same ewes. In-lamb ewes often travel down on the boat surprisingly well. Ewes did not sell particularly well at the sale, and this fact may be accounted for by the rough spell of weather that came during the past week. Although the rain was somewhat confined to an area close to the coast line, the atmospheric conditions were bitterly cold, and it was sufficient to remind stock-owners that the spring may be some little time off yet. A number of good lines of Canterbury ewes were forward, and the sheep did not attract, the competition usual, although several lots made £2 or a little more. One pen of sound-mouthed halfbred ewes that were rather small sold at 3?s 9d. The coarser ewes of this draft, fine threequarterbreds, and decidedly better framed sheep, went to 40s; but this price did not satisfy the owner. A small pen of rather well-bred English Leicester ewes, that had the appearance of being culls from a good flock, went to 40s 4d. There was more spirit in the bidding for ewe hoggets. One dealer who confines his operations largely to the South Canterbury districts was prepared to pay big figures for anything well grown, whether they were tine in the wool or net. Quite a number of pens of three-quarterbreds went from 32s to 23s Id. These were well grown. From a somewhat small halfbred hogget o2s was paid. Coarse-skinned sheep made from 30s to 31s lOd for the best of them. Halfbred wether hoggets sold at prices up to 255, and some coarser skinned wethers that had a little condition went to 265. Of the adult withers sold there were not many in forward condition, but generally the prices wore hardly as good as at the previous sale. A very good pen of halfbred two-tooths were yarded, but the best bid for them was practically 2s less than was paid for similar sheep a week earlier. A good draft of six and eight-toothed wethers that were not by any means specially forward sold at 33s 9d to 343 2d. They were big framed and w 7 ell w’oolled. SOME HIGH TRICES FOR MUTTON. A few specially good lines of mutton sold at very high figures at Addington. In particular was a line of wethers sent up from Timaru on account of Mr D. Grant. Forty made from 47s lOd to 60s 9d. Thero were four in the top pen, and the next pen of 12 went to 56s 3d, and 10 at 535. The other striking line was a truck of ewes sold on account of Mr James Campbell (Methven). The picked pen of 14made 52s 3d, 32 sold at 46s 6d, and the remainder (14) went at 43s 3d. Mutton values showed an improvement, though sales were irregular.