GENERAL FARMING NEWS.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 831, 1 June 1910, Page 8

GENERAL FARMING NEWS.

This year's winter show at Now Plymouth ia expected to be tho best of its kind yet hold in tho province. Practically the whole of tho available space has been applied for, and tho large Drill Hall, top-tlicr willi marquees ncciipving tho adjoining street, will be fully ■.taken with exhibits. There, will be at least three milking machines shown, together with oil.engines, and all classes of dairying machinery and utensils. The entries (if,butter and cheesn are very numerous. Tho Alinistor for Agriculture has proiniM'd, if possible, to open tho show on June S.

- Messrs. Gibbons and Coombes, of Marton, have sold their 1380-acrr farm -lit Waitolara to Jlr. .1. Darragh, at a satisfactory figure.

Mr. W. A. Hewitt, of Taranaki, who judged the seeds at the liawke's Bay Autumn show, brought back with him samples of the ryes which secured prizes, and, tho Stratford "Pest" states, has had them thoroughly germinated, with tho i'olowing results:—First prize seed weighed 4211b. per bushel, germinated 91 per cent.; second prize seed weighed .|3lb. per bushel, germinated S7 pur cent.; third prize seed weighed llSJlb. 'per bushel, germinated 86i pel- cent.; v.h.c. seed weighed 38311). per bushel, germinated 85! per cent. The standard weight for ryegrass seed is 201b. to the bushel, so the sends exhibited were exceptionally • heavy.

Writing with reference to the money spent on frujt-growing at the Monmahaki Jixperiment Farm, a correspondent of (lie

"Horowhenua Chronicle" says:—"lf half the inonc.t that luis bet-n hpunt on Jiotlmahaki had beoii spent judiciously on the Wereroa Experiment Farm in fruit experiments, we would have something to show for the, expenditure. At present all the fruit experiments are conducted on the very best land on the farm, which, is not a fair lest, as most of the land in this district is stony, and to meet tho requirements uf this'class of land, part of the experiments should lie conducted on the stony land, as some of' tho ibesl; varieties of fruit trees would be a failure on stony land, though on heavy, rich- land they would bo a success."