FARM JOTTINGS.

Thames Star, Volume LVII, Issue 15129, 21 February 1922, Page 8

FARM JOTTINGS.

ITEMS OF INTEREST. Visitors to the Hauraki Plains A. and P. Show at Ngatea remarked on the abundance of feed many paddocks being already fit to cut for hay for the second time this season. Paddocks were seen containing mixed clover and ryegrass standing over 18 inches high, and from which areas the first cut had been but recently stacked and thatched. The returns this season will easily constitute a record per cow for the whole of the Hauraki Plains. A. soldier settler in Hawke’s Bay purchased 1500 lambs at 6s per head, and after grazing them for a week sold 500 head at 18s each. At the time it was considered by many that the purchase was not a wise one. It is most unusual to find a blackbird voluntarily seeking to become a domestic pet, but one of the species has taken up its quarters at the Tiakitahuna dairy factory, and every morning awaits the opening of the doors, when it calmly enters and watches proceedings (says the Gisborne “Times”). It is already almost prepared to eat out of the manager’s hand.

Shearing in the upper plains districts has been much delayed this season owing to broken weather (says the Ashburton “Guardian”). At Ruapuna two months were occupied on one farm shearing 4000 sheep. There were only two shearers on the board, but as they could put through 200 head each per day when the conditions were favourable, it is seen that the weather caused 60 days to be occupied on a job that could have been done in 10 days’ fine weather. As evidence of the disastrous effects the weather had on the stone fruits, an announcement appeared outside a certain land agent’s office in Hastings, inviting all and sundry to bring boxes and fill them with Burbank plums, absolutely free of charge, as the fruit of over 50 trees in one orchard was going to waste.