COMMERCIAL.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume I, Issue 72, 27 March 1877, Page 2

COMMERCIAL.

[From the Lyttelton Times.]

Christchurch, Friday evening. Transactions in the grain market during the week have been rather extensfv c, but prices have a downward tendency. Sound samples of milling wheat range from 4s. 6d. to 4s. lOd. ; sprouted parcels from 2s. 6d. to 3s. ; stocks of the latter are accumulating rapidly. Oats command a fair inquiry at Is. lOd. for discoloured feed, up to 2s. 2d. for bright heavy milling. Dairy Produce.^—Butter meets with very little outside inquiry, and we have no improvement to note on last week's quotations. Cheese —A fair business doing at sfd.to6d. Merino ewes are now eagerly sought after, and command fair prices—say from 3s. for inferior to 4s. 6d. for the best of ,the class. The cattle yarded numbered 230, and these were chiefly stores, which commanded very full rates, in fact the demand for this class of stock is quite as brisk as it was in the spring. The fat.cattle, from the small number offered, were eagerly competed for, and brought quite Up to 30s. per lOOlbs. We, however, leave our quotations to stand at 27a. 6d. as an average. Messrs. H. Matson and Co. report on the live stock market, &c, for the week ending Friday, March 22, as follows:—At the Addington yards on Wednesday, 230 cattle, 5800 sheep, and 250 pigs were penned off for the week's supply. The bulk of the stock offered, changed, hands at satisfactory values. The quality of the cattle was inferior, and biddings for this class of stock were somewhat languid as compared with previous markets.' Really good lines of stores meet with keen competition. Milch cows and springers are daily becoming of more value.. Prime beef is. scarce, and for extra quality* light weights we quote 30s. per lOOlbs. Our entries.for the day comprised 130 head of cattle, 3456 sheep, and 211 pigs. In cattle we sold 60 head, and turned the balance out unsold. Fat cattle tq £U 55.; milch cows and springers, from £8 to £9105., and £1110s. to £13 per >head. In sheep, we, cleared the whole of our entries, topping the market with a line of the Hon. E. Gray's 4-tooth cross-breds, at lis. 3d."per head, thye bulk being taken by Mr. Peter Elder, for the Coast markets; 137 cross-breds for Messrs. Mathews Bros., at 10s. to 10s. 6d.; 253 cross-kred 2-tooth ewes, at 95., and '94 wethers 10s. Gd., for Mr. G. Duncan ; 200 cross-breds, at 10s., and 42 merinos, at 6s. 6d., for Mr. John Miin •; and sundry lines of cross-breds, at from 7s. 6d.. to 9s. 6d.; merino wethers, from 6s. to 6s. 9d.; ewes, 3s. 2d. to 4s. 9d. and ss. 6d. each ; crossbred lambs, 6s. 6d. to Bs. 6d. each ; in all 3456 head. Outside we have sold 4000 2tooth cross-breds in lots at from 7s. 6d., 7s. 9d., to Bs. per head. 211 pigs, from Bs., 95., 125., 18s., to 325. each. Wool, skms, hides, &c.-—At our weekly auction Oh Thursday, a fair entry came to hand— 40 bales of wool, several thousand skins, and 80 hides were catalogued. ...Merino and long-woolled realised fairly, lambs wool withdrawn. Sheepskins sold at a good advance upon' the previous week's prices. Hides withdrawn at 4d. per lb.