NOTES ON FARMING OPERATIONS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1020, 8 December 1883, Page 2

NOTES ON FARMING OPERATIONS

[by our special reporter.] Yesterday morning the weather looking more settled, 1 rode out to (Jreensireat to ascertain how farming operations generally were progressing in that district. 1 he first farm I visited belonged to Mr A. Fiisby, whose land is principally under crop, only a small portion being kept for grazing. His cereals look remarkably well, notably one large paddock of wheat opposite his residence, which if no unforseen misfortune happens to it, must yield a grand return at threshing time, and is without doubt the best field of this description in the district. This gentleman informed me that a good many of his hoggets had died from bronchial worms, and that at a very early lambing season he lost quite 50 per cent of lambs. This was in the month of August, when we had some very severe weather. The feed everywhere is most luxurious, the cattle being up to their knees in grass, and the sheep in some instances being quite hidden

and are looking, in an auctioneer’s dialect, “as fat as mud.” The [fruit trees, both large and small, excepting the peaches, look remarkably well, in fact the branches of some of the apple trees if not thinned must break from the weight of fruit, i’he peach trees, I am sorry to say, have been attacked by a blight; first the leaves shrivel, then the fruit becomes soft, and eventually both fall to the ground leaving the tree as bare as in v inter. Smaller fruit, such as gooaebonies and currants, show well, some very fine specimens of the former were shown me by Mr Frisby. There is a very nice paddock reserved for hay of about eighty acres opposite the school, belonging to Mr Sutherland, which ought to yield four or five tons per acre, and with this exception is the only large meadow the other side of Digby’s bridge, hay being evidently the one bra"ch of agricultural industry that does not pay. The shearing season throughout the will no doubt be a protraced one, on account of the [cold summer we are getting. One or two farmers have finished, some are in the middle, while the greater majority have not commenced operations jet, waiting until after Christmas, when they prognosticate more .wasonab'e weather. The generality of farmers up this way have been very fortun? te in not losing many lambs this year, having wisely made the lambing time later than formerly. The small birds no means numerous, a great many having been poisoned, especially the larks, which indeed do the most damage, and if the poisoned wheat is as successful next year as it has been this, the farmers think that this great evil may be a thing of the past. Greenstreet is by no means standing still in the county, as many new homesteads have sprung up since I last had the pleasure of reporting about the district. The land for the most part being very good, it must of necessity soon repay the agriculturalist for the labor he bestows on it.