SOUTHLAND NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3889, 25 September 1928, Page 25

SOUTHLAND NOTES.

(From Our Own Correspondent.) MIXED WEATHER. We have had a mixture of weather for the past fortnight, including some of the worst days we have experienced for many months past. The rain mostly fell at night, but was at times heavy enough to stop team work on the following day. Sowing oats has commenced, and, given suitable weather, will be general before the month is out. There are still some odd patches of turnips to eat off yet, and this is mostly" being done by cows. Factories are opened, and everywhere farm life shows evidence of spring. There are a good many lambs scattered over the different districts, and by the time this appears in print lambing will be on in all our low country, with the tussock ewes following 10 days or a fortnight later. STOCK PRICES. .Very- little business is reported in the forward, delivery line this year. One line of station wether lambs has changed hands at 16s 6d, with a 10 per cent, rejection. This seems perfectly safe business for .the buyer considering the outlook. I Mercantile firms are not encouraging buy- | ing for forward delivery, which at best -as something of a gamble, but apart from this sellers are not inclined to offer their stock for sale in view .of current pros-, pects. Southland at the present time has very few stock dealers. compared to a

decade ago, as the slump, especially in wethers, put, several men who were tradin. a fairly big way completely out ot business, and they have not ventured into speculation again to any extent. Dealers have their place in the live stock trade,, but the business was much overdone in Southland for many years, HYDRO ELECTRIC SUPPLY, At a meeting of the Southland Executive of the Farmers’ Union, held last Saturday, the question of the Power Board buying out the-reticulation scheme of the Invercargill Borough was brought up, and d resolution was passed in favour of doing so. The board has already approached the Borough Council, but the latter declined to consider the proposal. It seems that the town is supplied with power from Monowai which, by retailing out to ratepayers, is- making a profit to the council of between £20.000 and £30,000 per annum. It is therefore most unlikely that the council will part with the means of making a profit like the above. The member of the Farmers’ Union who brought the matter up had some hard things to say about the town Retting the better of the country over the whole scheme of electric supply, and the question is one over which a town versus country feeling could easily be raised, as several speakers accused the council of not playing the game.” The argument mostly used was that Invercargill is solely dependent on the country for business, and should therefore shoulder its full share of this particular burden. On the other hand, it can be very justly argued that farmers have themselves largely to blame for their present troubles oyer the big undertaking. At the initiation of the scheme, when a poll was taken, so little interest was taken that a very small percentage of ratepayers recorded their vote either for or against the proposal, and now they are paying for their indifference, especially those in the unreticulated areas. Apart from excessive rating, there are other matters in conjunction with the working of the Power Board which will leave feelings of antagonism for years to come. For instance, canvassers were sent round by the board to induce settlers to put in electric cooking ranges, and hundreds of these were taken on the distinct understanding that the power used would be deducted direct off the . rates. It was then generally known that a rate would be necessary to enable the board to pay the annual demands for interest and running expenses, so that settlers very naturally were easily persuaded to have power instead of nothing for the rates they were being called on to pay. They soon discovered that they had to pay rates and also for every unit of power used. Some of the glib-tongued canvassers who were working on commission will meet with a short shrift if they 'ever attempt to sell anything in the same districts again. „ NOXIOUS WEEDS. The discussion on the amendments to the Noxious Weeds Act in the House was of great interest to Southland farmers, and any attempt to/ include Canadian thistles in the first schedule will be met with strong resentment. The thistle harvest here used -to be work which had to be arranged for until the law made it unnecessary. The results must surely stagger some of the inspectors who were the prosecutors under the Act as it originally stood. There are thousands of acres in the province over which, 20 years ago, when the thistles were at their full growth, it was impossible to drive stock, even cattle, and now on the same land there is not a single thistle to be seen. They hav simply died, or, as some put it, grown themselves out. £)nce the frost touches them they fire excellent feed, and some farmers are inclined to believe that heavy feeding down in winter has had much to do with their gradual disappearance. It is an interesting fact that after the first touch of frost animals (especially horses) prefer them to grass or even clover. On cropping land it was found that to clean a paddock without missing a year of production the best crop to grow was ridged rape. On good average soil where rape can be counted on to come away fairly quick, by keeping the horse hoe going between the drills until the crop gets ahead of the thistles there is every prospect of leaving the paddock clean. If, however, a badly infested paddock has to be broken up the proper course is to plough the thistles in at the top of their growth, say in January or early in February. keep working tire surface with discs and harrows, never allowing the thistles to get showing, and in March sow in Dun oats. The thistles ploughed with a chain on the plough to put them under will be found to be like green manuring.

WOOL TRANSPORT. Farmers are already being .circularised by the Railway Department about the carrying of their wool. Compared to 10 years ago a great change has taken place in railway transport. To get wool away then the first thing to do was to order trucks, and when doing so one could get no satisfaction as to when the trucks would be supplied, which necessitated meeting trains until the trucks were shunted off. Missing a day after that meant a bill for demurrage. Now all the farmer has to do is to notify the nearest station master by telephone or otherwise that he has a certain number of bales ready, and there, bis worry ends, as the department • sends a motor lorry for the wool and railway employees do the loading. It is only right that the railways should be supported in every possible way, '■as the cost of running them is a tax on the public; but at the same time, with the competition amongst lorry owners, the cost of transport by road is in many cases lower than by rail, especially where the farm is situated any great distance from the railway. Some farmers forget that the railways carry lime free, and there was a case reported some two or three years ago of a southern squatter who had largely availed himself of this privilege, and then turned round and sent his big clip of wool, running into hundreds of bales,- by motor lorries to Dunedin. He was promptly billed for railage of lime,, and no one will blame the railway officials for doing so. THE STOCK MARKET. There is nothing fresh . to report in the stdek market. Every class of stock is meeting with a keen demand at high

prices. When ox beef is realising 50a per 1061 b, prime heifer beef 40s and over, wethers 45s to 50s per head and ewes 35s to 40s there is little reason to complain. Stores are also bringing big prices. A line of over 900 ewe hoggets sold in Winton a fortnight ago at fror ‘Os 6d to 41s 6d. An outstanding fc of the sheep market to-day is the s. i number of aged ewes being offered compared to what was common in past ye~-s.