FARM AND DAIRY

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 221, 30 December 1910, Page 3

FARM AND DAIRY

The Edgecote Shorthorn Company bought a bull calf, eight months old, for £1.1:1>2 10s at Uppermill, Aberdeenshire, at the sale of Shorthorns belonging to iir. Duthie, of Collyrice. Waikato potato-growers are reaping a rich harvest just now. Digging at the present tune is general, and the farmer's chief concern lies in the direction of obtaining sufficient hands to get the product ready for despatch. Casual labor is scarce, and farmers are paying such hands as much as 9s per day,, and in the Pukekohe 1 district as high, as Ts 3d per hour was paid by a grower last month. A number of Maoris have also been engaged to do the work, and the natives are jubilant at the roseate prospects of the next few weeks to come. Very good yields are obtaining. Few growers have less than eight tons of marketable potatoes to 'the acre, but many have heavier yeilds. At Pukekohe a. month back 50 tons were taken from a field comprising five acres, and the whole of the product was sold at £l4 per ton. Several other plots of ground, from a half to two acres in size, also yielded 10 tons to the acre, the product being sold at £l4 per ton. Several other plots of ground, from a half to two acres in size, also yielded 10 tons to the acre, the product being sold in most cases at the above price. Last week heavy yields were being dug, but, of course the tubers have had an opportunity of maturing considerably during the past four weelcs, while the supply is naturally making some diiference to the price. But even with the price receding somewhat, £l'o to £ll being now the ruling figure oil the Auckland market, growers are coining money. Some farmers have areas extending from 30 to 40 acres under cultivation, while , smaller areas are everywhere in evidence. A wool buyer who attended a country wool sale told a queer story concerning the last Wellington wool sales. The wool buyer bid 7%d per lb there for a' line of thi-ee bales of dead wool. It was dead, for sure; three sheep skeletons in the centre of one bale gave 'ample proof of that! The brand of a wellknown run-holder was on the bales, and at the earliest -opportunity the buyer applied to him for a refund of deadweight money—and got it/ Subsequently the runholder interviewed the misguided underling who placed the skeletons in the bale—and to-day there is a weary man treading the Wairarapa Plains 'in search of another job. The rigid enforcement of the Noxious Weeds Act iii some of the. uplands of Marlborough is causing many indignant protests among the settlers. The "weed" against which action is being taken is' brier, on the young plants of which the sheep _ thrive satisfactorily. It is said that it will cost on an average about £3 per acre to clear the la'nd of this weed, and thfe' actual value of the land is under £ 1 per acre. Many of the settlers affirm that if the.. Act is enforced they will be compelled to give up their < holdings. In the opinion of many practical farmers brier is not such a very noxious weed, and the compulsory Clearing of the land .will be a great hardship to the settlers. . '•< •.->!