GENERAL FARMING NEWS.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1202, 10 August 1911, Page 8

GENERAL FARMING NEWS.

Some littU time back Mr. T. W. Kirk, of the Agricultural Department, promised, to send tho Nelson City Council a colony of lady-birds, to cope with the outbreak of icerya purchasi (cottony cushion, scale) on the wattle trees. Mr. Kirk intended - sending the lady-birds iu tho spring, hut he now. finds that ho cannot get them before January. It seems that it may be difficult to procure them, as they have disappeared from the localities in.Which they wero previously plentiful.

A total of 3159 cases of fruit arrived by tho Manuka yesterday, 15!)S cases ,of tho total shipment being for Wellington. The consignments coihpr.ised mandarines, oranges, lemons, and passion frnit.

The loss nud trouble arising from wet sheep in the sheari-ng has often been complained of. A company has now bcen formed in Melbourne (says an exchange) to place on the market a plant for drying wet sheep. Tho..method, is by a system of hot air pipes, and the time taken for tho sheep to dry.is.from threequarters of an hour to an hour.

Out of. !102. tattle slaughtered at the Cliristchurch abattoirs during July, IS wero condemned, and of 10,150 sheep killed, seven wero certified as unfit. There were no failures anion?".'tfie.'.sJ(! lambs killed, but of. 13-13" r .pigs; . that passed through the municipal slaughterhouse 11 were rejected. Two calves out of 115 killed were condemned.

Tilings arc looking remarkably well in the south, according to a recent visitor, but thero has still not boon enough rain to thoroughly soak tho ground after tho snmuier drought. The- small-bird -pest is ma-king itself felt in tho .Ashburfoii coiiiity.* According to farmers the birds are pulling up tho young grain shoot? in a wholesale manner. One fanner snvs ho will have to re-sow a portion of his paddock, as the birds have pulled up practically the whole of tho shoots that had sprung from a bushel and a half of grain sown. Tho takings at the Dunedin show this yeo.r totalled ,£I3S2 Cor five days, a? against. ,£l3lO for tho four days of last year's sbow. The executive, considers this year's -result, a phenomenal one. While ploughing in his paddock at Shadforth, near Ornngo (X.S.W.). last week, Mr. John Taylor turned over an old tin. While oxamining.it out rolled l,"i sovereigns. How tb.ey got there i.s a mystery. The rusty state of the tin indicated that it had been thero a long time.