DRUMMOND NOTES.

Southland Times, Issue 16688, 17 March 1911, Page 2

DRUMMOND NOTES.

(From Our Own Correspondent.) r The drought is still a reality here. fTou have had showers in Invt.cargill but only a shower here to wet the ground, and show how parched everything Is. I never saw paddocks so hard and hare looking as they now are. .The stubbles In most cases are not close and heavy. The crops have been below an average hence the surface is bare and thin ; otherwise it would have been very dangerous if any of those etubb’es had taken fire. I hear! of one party starting a fire which spread rapidly and he had to exert himself .Vigorously to save his fences. I notice another part of a paddock which was in oats where the stubble is burned and part of a fence. This was caused by g spark fro~i a traction engine. At present it Is blowing a nor’wester though not very' strong as yet, but I *m afraid there will be no rain to follow. The prospect for winter feed is getting very serious, Farly swedes are getting blighted, and later cropa are leaking so stinted It seems as if they cannot possibly recover, and a second growth dovt not help a crop much. The fattening of lambs is very disappointing to many. The rape has not grown as it should, and the soft or ,white turnips have ripened before they .•were half-grown. The lambs are not fit to go, and in too many cases th -2 Is nothing more to put them on to. For jthose who aro dairying it is no better. The test may be rising but the milk supply Is failing so rapidly, and from the want of feed (and in some cases I think the want of water) is telling badly* avhlc& la paly, too evident in, the

cattle rapidly losing condition. It will be foun 1 a bard matter to get these cows up in condi : on d-rlrg the winter, and the prospects for another season will be anything but favourable. ’n many casus the wells have been cleaned out and deepened two or three times. Not only have nearly all the creeks gone dry but the Oretl is rapidly getting lower, and the Aparima can scarcely ever have been so low before. I nonce you had 0.11 inches in Invercargill. We may possibly have had .011. Mr Mollison, Limestone Plains, while threshing oats near the homestead, had his out-buildings all burned caused by the belt on the governors of the engine breaking and the engine getting away sparks caught the straw stack. He lost ISO bags rye- ass in barn but saved the oats.