CANTERBURY AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16861, 11 October 1922, Page 7

CANTERBURY AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE.

A meeting of the Board of Governors of 1 the Canterbury Agricultural College was held at the College to-day ; present— Messrs H a. Knight (chairman), R. W. Loehbead. W T. Ritchie. Thomas Blackley, John Deans, and the Hon D. Buddo. Dr Chilton apologised for absence. Communications were received from Sir Jumes Wilson, president of the Board of Agriculture, dir Heaton Rhodes, Dr Thacker and Mr George Witty. ll.P.'s. in reference to the subsidy hitherto paid t-j the college on wheat selection work, and indicating that the Government were fa\ourably disposed to reinstating the grant. 1 Mu- resolved to thank these gentlemen, ulso the members of Parliament for Canterbury and the Minister of Agriculture for the interest they had taken in the matter and the highly satisfactory results j of * their efforts. 1 One of the lessees of the board's endow- ! tension of his lease. It was resolved to | reply that the board cannot depart from I On the motion of the chairman. the Director was appointed returning officer to conduct- the annual elections the retiring members of the board being Mr John Deans, North Canterbury, A. and P. Rob/* Hon D. Buddo. Parliamentary Roll. Farmers' Day was provisionally fixed for December 19. arrangements to be the same as last year. The farm report, was received and tli« lambing return- - considered very satisfacFAEM REPORT. Conditions generally during the winter Lave been very favourable to farm work the result is that the sowing of spring crops and preparation of land for foddei crops is well ahead of time. On the otliei hand, the very low rainfall has left us with practically no moisture in the soij or subsoil. At present the crops and glass’look very healthy and are growing vigorously, but this cannot continue unless a good fall of rain comes within the next week or two. The outlook is not m; all promising. The total rainfall to date is a little over 12£in. the normal fall at this time of the year being from lSin to 20in. The complete area of autumn and spring grown crops is as follows Wheat, 125 acres; oats, 128 acres; bailey. 11 acres; oats and vetches, 42 acres mangels, 10 acres; kale. 19 acres. The following areas are ready for sowing: acres. In addition there are 50 acre: oats at Ashley Dene, and 210 acres plough ed for turnip.', rape and green feed. All classes of stock have- done well during the winter. The death rate has been unusually lpw. Turnips and green feed gave good returns. The turnip crop wat riot only heavy but very sound, and carrlec the stock up to the end of September. Weather and conditions generally wen very good for lambing. The lambing re turns are very satisfactory, losses among the ewes being the lowest for many years The tallies are as follow, and are calculated on the number of ewes put to the ram, less ewes dead beWre lambing Border Leicester. 130 per cent: English Leicester. 125 per cent; Romney Marsh. 13* per cent; Southdown. 98 per cent; Shropshire, 120 per cent; Suffolk. 160 per cent: (Vrricdalo. 127 per cent; general average 1 25 per cent. Cross-bred* will average about 110 per cent. *