GENERAL NCTES

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2670, 17 January 1916, Page 8

GENERAL NCTES

Throughout tho entire Upper Clutha Valley district farmers and pastoralists are enjoying a prosperous period, excellent crops aud big wool clips being the .order (states, tho "Gromwell Argus"). In tho grain-growing districts harvesting is now tho order, and in many cases the yields must constitute a record. Around Hawea, 3,' arras, and Mount Barker the binder is busy in the fields, which aro literally studded with stooks. It would bo hard to imagino anything better than the splendid areas of wheat, barley, and oats to be from the roadlino in Hawea, but in many quarters' it is maintained that at Mount Barker yields are even heavier. In some cases the grain is already in tho stack, aud with the fine weather prevailing tho work is proceeding steadily. : The Totara correspondent of the Oamaru "Mail" writes -.—There is nothing particular to record regarding the district except, the eiiremo dryness of everything around. There is hardly a blade of grass to be seen anywhere that is the natural colour, and everything is a dreary,, brown drab, depressing to (he ■eye.' 1 " Crops aro short and scrappy and very ragged —in some cases having ears about six inches from the ground. Cutting the .crops has commenced, but so far there havo been almost as many acres cut with the horse-mower as with tlie reaper and binder. The first crop of rape for over twenty years —in fact, sinco tho old Totara days—has just been threshed, and with the great price that that commodity has reached, shoiikl realise a handsome profit for t)ie owner. Tho ail mini inoculation of calves against blackleg,' a • form of- blood-pois-oning, is now being carried out in yio franklin County by the officers of vhe Department of Agriculture. The local veterinary . 'state that they know of no actual cases of blackleg at the present time,, and that the inoculation is purely ■ a preventative _ measure. Farmers in the district have reported;a certain amount of mortality among calves, which they attribute to b'sickleg, but, as no post-mortem examina-tions-have been made, it is not "(pits certain whether the animals had '00211 attacked by the disease. Harvesting is now becoming general throughout i the Geraldine district, and there are many capital crops, the dry weather notwithstanding. Grass lands are 'fairly 'bakeel; and some 'armors have been' .cutting oats to feed their cows. . .. - ; ,

; There has been a great demand for the celebrated Victor cheese; vat during the past'feiy months; anyone requiring new vats are urged to write, immediately to the maker, aa material is extremely short. Albert J, Parton, Carterton.—Adyti