GENERAL FARMING NEWS.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1164, 27 June 1911, Page 8

GENERAL FARMING NEWS.

With careful treatment and pruning, bitter pit can be greatly lessened, if not altogether overcome, according to ITr. John Osborne, junior, Horticultural Expert, who lectured recently before the Hoard of Agriculture in Quecnsborough, Tasmania. According to an American paper, feeders of cattle in the X'nited States fee! so much confidence in an advance of prices during tlu , summer that they are buying store beasts freely, to f?od on pastures find maize, at prices almost equal t:> those of fat cattle, which have been selling badly recently. In comparing the live-stock' of Great Britain during the past two decades it is shown that there has been a decrease of 839,021 sheep in tho last ten years over : tho preceding decade, or 3.11 per cent., while an increase in cattle has been recorded of 330,322, or about S per cent. The first importation of Hereford cattle into Japau has just been made, two young bulls and two heifers having been purchased iu England by tlio Japanese Government for oho of its experiment farms. The "Agricultural Journal" states that the fear that the larch plantations in tho Soutii Island had been attacked by tho destructive disease known as the larch-leaf cast is quite without foundation. liurins the summer a good deal oE defoliation has occurred, but it appears to bo entirely due to the abnormal dry weather experienced. The Government Biologist reports that during a recent trip to lhe Awatcre ho was greatly impressed with the spread of danthonia in that district. Throughout all tho lower country, and especially on the sunny faces, where originally the. vegetation was mainly tho silver tusjoclc, a. thick sward of sev?ral varieties of both Danthonm Eoniianmilaris and D. pilcsa is now present, to the exclusion of nearly all other grasses. Iligher up the valley, whero thn main grasses arc both silver and hard tussock, dnnlhonia is not yci an important element of lhe pastures. It is (he says), however, only a matter of timo when danthonia will be throughout the whole of the Awatere Valley) the most important and valuable constituent of the tiatnral pastures up to an elevation of 2500 feet. It is only a. few years ago since- danthonia was' quitn a despised grass in Marlboroujh, but farmers there now fully recognise its great value on unplonshcd land where the annual precipitation of moisture is small.