FAIRFAX NOTES.

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

FAIRFAX NOTES.

(From Our Own Correspondent.) hast night wc had two hours heavy rain. In the afternoon there was sufficient to stop those who were slacking, but they are few, us every hour of (lie marvellous weal' r we have had has been taken advantage of. The threshing mills are doing a good season. So many threshed out of the stock that he who wants to sell can cart steadily until all liis bags are away, and then the great advantage comes in. The farmer can take advantage of the good weather and commence ploughing and sowing without delay, t us ensuring an early harvest, and so the early seasons go on. The result is giving every satisfaction to those who have threshed, and the sample cannot be excelled. So fur the prices for oats are fairly payable, but wheat should not be below ;;/!) or I/-- although with such excellent crops of wheat as are everywhere to lie found this season, 3/- is a paying price.

and with 40 to 60 bushels per aero there is good enough inducement to give the fairly high prices that are at present given for land. This morning, after last night's good rain, every paddock has assumed a green appearance, and the turnips have completely revived. I notice that the drought has a much greater effect upon turnips sown on tlie flat than those soan in raised drills. The drills in some measure seem to have retained the moisture more t’. an tlie others, and where tlie leaves cover the drills the bulbs are large and well formed, and give promise of plentiful feed. Tlie dairy factories have this year suffered to a great extent. The vats are not only greatly depleted, but unless a fair spring of grass comes away through the great heat in the soil, the factories will close down six weeks earlier than in previous years. This year should teach all dairy farmers that they must make, provision for growing artificial feed for the months of February, March, and on to the end of the season. Five acres of dun and taros with a liberal seeding together with two cwt. of superphosphates should tide thirty or forty cows over the season with one feed a day. cut and thrown into a lea paddock. Better still, if the sowings were at a fortnight’s interval, then the cuttings would be continuously green. Farmers are getting sufficient experience from this and the past seasons to realise that some such provision must bo made to ensure a fair milk supply when tlie seasons are on the wane. There are many opinions expressed and written as to how horses should be stabled, and also as to how tlie stable should be built so as to ensure plenty of fresh air. Experience teaches many that if a stable Is kept clean, the shorter time tlie horses are in it tlie better. There are no horses more healthy than those that are stabled when feeding, then rugged and turned out into the paddock. In the morning they come for their feed fresh and frisky. Of course this applies to farmers’ horses. The good rains we are getting will he the means of reviving the prices of stock, and next sale should see the 2/per heal lost during the drought completely restored. The horse market shows a good demand for anything suitable for the Melbourne market. 1 clip tlie following from a Melbourne paper. It may benefit those who are troubled with caterpillars or grubs : “Mr Ray, of Lindenon, saved his wheat crop by tlie use of poisoned bran. MiRay staled that the grubs were present in millions, both on his farm and those of his neighbours. From the result of tlie bran, the grubs were lying on the ground in millions, and he saved and threshed a crop of 40 bushels per aero. They were two inches deep in places, and threatened the destruction of the whole crop. Mr Ray used half a ton of bran and 701b of Paris Green. If the above is effectual there is no great expense attached to it, as bran is fairly cheap. :