GENERAL FARM NEWS

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 158, 23 March 1918, Page 10

GENERAL FARM NEWS

In the Wellington educational district agricultural bursaries have been awarded to G. Holgtrseii (Eketnhuna) and Tankersley (Masterton). A resident of the Waimate Plains called at the "Witness" fcffice a few days ago and asked that the following statement should be made public:—ln May, 1915 (lie states), lie and his wife took over the management of a. farm in- the district owned by a man who went to the front about the time mentioned. The informant, who is in the Second Division, has new beon called up, and f;oes into camp in May next. During his management of the farm he had the assistance of an ilien, a single man, who has,now been appointed manager, by those,-invested with legal control of the property, at a >age of £4 a week, house rent free, and butter, milk, cheese, and firewood supplied free. The "Witness's" informant contends that before such a pcsition was handed ever to an alien it should have been advertised and an opportunity given to a returned soldier to apply for it/ He asks if it :s fair or just or in any sense patriotic that men who have fought and suffered for their country should be ignored, m hi this instance, : and such marked favour and preference shown to. a foreigner. In. the neighbourhood where this happened, he states, there is a good deal of'indignation. A new dairy factory is to be erected at Cardiff. . ' A letter from a Stratford man in 'France throws some light on the future of the cheese market. In reply to a .query as to whether soldiers will not have become so fed up with cheese that on return to civil life they will eat no more, he says the cheese ration has for the last year, or more been very much reduced ' from ' the forraer_ overlavish proportion, and that there is now no waste. Moreover, tho civil, population are not getting anything like a full supply at present. The Patea Farmers' .Co-operativo Freezing Company have decided to demolish the whole of the remaining wooden portion of the works and rs- - same: at once in ferro-concreto (says the "Press"). Already this year more sheep and cattle have been killed than during the whole of the jirevioua year. The value of the new coTd storage accommodation was illustrated recently when the large building was put into use immediately, and is now half full. The new fellmongery is now in full working order, and is said to be one of the most complete and Lp-to-date in the Dominion. The company's wages sheet for the last'few weeks has well maintained the average of £800 a week.

At the Court of Petty Sessions at Hay, in New South Wales, an unusual case was heard. TJnder the Pasture Protection Act, John William M'llveen was charged by summons with cutting off more than one-fourth of the ear of three merino sheep. Inspector Little gave evidence that he inspected some sheep of M'llveen's, a settlor in the Hay district, and found six sheep cropeared, three of which were claimed by neighbouring'holders, At a later and more complete muster nine crop-eared sheep were found. Defendant had not given notice to him or the police of having crop-eared sheep, as required by the Act. He said he did not know how the sheep became crop-eared; lie did not do it. Mr. Wilkinson, for defendant, raised the points that it was not an offence for a bolder to have cropeared sheep belonging to himself, and that there was no evidence that the offence had been committed within six months of. the laying of the information. The Police Magistrate upheld the latter point, and ruled that he had no jurisdiction in the caße.