ALFORD FOREST.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XIV, Issue 2899, 15 February 1893, Page 2

ALFORD FOREST.

(from our cobkbspondknt.) _, February 13. The recent fine weather has enabled the settlers to get in their amall bat useful oat crop in capital condition. Grass has been abundant, as it invariably is along the hills, and. where turnips have been sown they show well. Mr A. McFarlane recently purchased eight hundred acres of land on the Pudding Hill side of the north Ashburton, and at nnce, with his habitual energy, pat two hundred acres in turnip*, which show splendidly, and speak volumes for the promise of the remaining six hundred seres. He also purchased a good mob of wether sheep at the recent Cheviot sale, and evidently does not intend good feed to be wasted. Fifty acres of turnips hat* been sown by Mr H. Muirhead on his thousand acre block, which also look extremely healthy. Of the Mount Alford Government sections to be used as sheep runs, Mr O. Grieves obtained the one nearest his homestead, but in the case of the other sections the upset price was too high by three pence per acre, feed being good in parts, but a lot of rough country intervening. No doubt the land office ■ will rectify matters next time. Some years have now elapsed since the. twelve Government homesteads- were < taken up by working men, and I*oo!d like any opponent of the present rulers to interview each ocoupant. and thus prove beyond doubt that a block of land for each man in the country would put away much bitterness as between capitalist »nd laborer. A short time back one of the said sections was re-leased by auction, the twenty acres making £27 iOd, the only improvement of any value being the fencing and a rough stable roofed with galvanised iron. Several have refused sixty pounds for their 20----acre sections, thus refuting the idea that a perpetual lease must be inferior to freehold tenure. A few sheep, with wool and lambs tbereform, a good milking cow or two, and a useful brood mare, soon fell tales, and the evident satisfaction of each holder of a small section, inalienable under any adverse circumstances, is pleapant to see. The Alford Station run is being cut up io suit purchasers, and the Single Tree ! Station will be put up to auction on March 2 at Dunedin by order of the Colonial Investment Company. Buyers of lambs are running round In a lively manner, things being brisk in " that line. A new era is commencing pretty generally, the old plan of buying inferior ewes to breed from hiving given place to the feeling that.it pays best t& breed from good ewes. Lambs here are soiling at from 8s 6dl to 10* Si. - ■ With the exoep'tion of influewa the health of the district is good. :iAs"i proof th>t animals take this epidemic,'it may be mentioned that a pig in capital pondi; tion died from it a few days ago, the chief symptoms being paralysis of the hiqfl