A PRECOCIOUS SEASON.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 890, 9 August 1910, Page 8

A PRECOCIOUS SEASON.

|i.. ■ : ■ ■ ,'-. AND. SOME BESDL'CS. THEREOF. - . ■' Our travelling correspondent writes:— Riding down'into the "Wangaehu Valley :I saw ahead of me a big patch of a blue-jsh-gTeen vegetation. .1 'thought it: was jnueh too late,for.rape, and so it proved, r as, when I got to it; it "turned out.to be [the cabbage and broccoli plantation of : Mr. S: "Woodhill. ' This : farmer grows 'these familiar vegetables in. anything \i|. (to twenty, acres, and sends ■ them away to all quarters by the truck-load. ■ The .AVangaoJin soil evidently is excellently adapted to this class' of.! farming. ■ On rising to the top of the hill to No. I. Line, to AVanganui, I soon saw a great difference in, the appearance of the land. About,Fordell, aud Warrengate thero_ is .a considerable area of'heavy -land which holds tho water. It can't, get away, and so leaves : everything very wet and cold at this time.of the year. .However, I did not hear of. many, complaints about young sheep dying, but most farmers said their 'sheep had hqtibeen doing well.. ' The fact'is'there, is no" doubt the mild autumn , and. early .winter, though ' verj pleasant, were unseasonable. "The great growth.of grass was too »ft and flabby. There was not/sufficient hardening-up in it. 1 . the stock feljb the effects of: too much watery' feed. There'is no doubt that the- very heavy frosts we have had since ..will ,hr.v? done an immense; amount of, good.;- Vegetation of all sorts was getting too forward, as I have in, my own'orchiirtl.au apricot which was in-full bloom a month ago, and on nearing Wanganiii..l-sawa good many cherry plums in-(lower. '-The' danger, : of course, with such precocity is that-should late frosts occur they will cause early-set fruit to drop, or if the trees aro in bloom, and a. sufficiently;strong,frost oomes, it destroys the ;-,fertilisa.tif.n ,of- the blossom.. So that seasonable weather is always the best for man and beast as well as for the vegetable world. " . ■ . . jAVhat a:price-young,cattle have got to! .Every' day,.almost(farnie'fs'TaVe asking me if I can put them on to'a'line of young cattle. -From .present appearances anyone' with stock • with any eiuality in it can ask : "alinbst , any price.,;,, Buyers are 'scouring ;the ■ country- .trying to ■', pick' up either young;heifers : !or_steers. 'leaw a line of"last v -year's r calves' sold. the othetday at iSs., and a ; sorry lot they were. Two or-three years.ago we would';not have.looked at them at any price.