AGRICULTURAL REPORT.

Colonist, Volume III, Issue 295, 17 August 1860, Page 4

AGRICULTURAL REPORT.

The farmers in Victoria have in the present ; condition of the colony a battle to fight; and it becomes our special duty to offer advice to them. Our advice is a three-fold: one. First: As the market is limited, they may be liable to produce more than suffioieut for the supply of our own wants; besides, their calculations are often frustrated by large importations of foreign grain; they should, therefore, study how all things necessary for the wants of this country cau be most economically produced, and whetlier a higher system of farming, aided by machinery, might not enable them to produce cheaply, and yet very profitably/and thus render it impossible for the foreigner to compete with them in ■ their own market. Second: They ought seriiously to .consider whether, by the help of the jhigherami better system of fariniug we have rejcommended they could not, by artificial feeding Ido something for the supply of our market with ; a superior description, of animal food; audjthird: JThey, should not depend altogether upon the imarkets of the colony for their; rewards; but ilook about them : and see what they can produce profitably, for'exportation.

That fearful disease, pleuro-pueutnonia, we re-, gret to" say] is still showing itself, on the Merri Creek. A ;Mn Hooper, whoso.place is about two miles distant from Mr. Boadle's, where the disease first began, lias already lost five head. 'A petition has been forwarded to the Assembly, to:take measures for the timely suppression of this terrible disease. In America, active steps have been taken by the „ Legislature, and throughout that country any diseased cattle are at once destroyed, tinder .provisions similar to those that have long been in force in New South Wales, for the prevention of "scab" in sheep. No time "should be lost in ; checkiog suoh a fearful calamity as the spread of this .disease must entail on the colony^ .and not on the colony only, but tin the other Australian pq!onies., case ;is urgent, and,: if- any delay takes place, the infection will spread, soon to extend itself ove>ailcth reColonies'; to:the destruction of their stock. There is no real cure for it. Death to all that become iafected is our ouly hope; sud so subtle is the disease, that in this

instance it is supposed to have been communicated by a bullock yoke. A few hundred pounds spent now will probably save tens of thousands hereafter. ; ■■;."] _■,< v i > From the Yass arid Bathurst papers we learn that there has been, in the more elevated,portions of New South Wales, some very severe, weather. Also, that in some localities there1 will, this season, bo a great breadth of new laud under cultivation. . ' ! The severe frosts experienced throughout Victoria have done some damage to gardens, and checked the growth of grass, as well as of some crops; but these have been followed with seasonable rains and fine weather. The prospects of an abundant crop throughout this colony; have never, been greater; and accounts received; from the other colonies prove that the winter of: the southern hemisphere this year.is generally: mild, and favorable for the crops of graiD, as well as for our natural pastures. ...■■: From South Australian papers just received, we learn that the farmers in the colony are entertaining the most gloomy apprehensions from; the expected abundance of their drops. They! begin to think that the coming harvest may be; too good, and that Victoria will not much longer offer a market for the produce of South Australia, and the Register attempts to console them with a review of our Victorian statistics, in which it appears, as we in a former number of this paper pointed out,, that last year this colony imported more than half of the wheat she consumed. , Taking the whole question into consideration, we think the farmers of Victoria have less cause to be alarmed than the South Australians at the prospect- of an abundant harvest, for the advantages of position and average yield per acre are on our aide. The South Australian farmers, like our own, will yet have to learn to depend altogether on the growth of cereals, but. on articles that can be profitably exported to where there is a wider market than is to be met with in Australia. ,