AGRICULTURAL ITEMS.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1052, 16 June 1882, Page 4

AGRICULTURAL ITEMS.

Mr. Thomas Shaw, a Victorian sheep farmer contends that shearing in the grease is more profitable by 3d per sheep, and that w shiug will soon be a thing of the past. lie says all our wcols have to I e washed by the manufacturer, and why not once for all]

Curing the last week in January the temperature is said to have fallen JO degrees in the United States in 48 hours. In the Northern States and i; 1 Canada the thermometer ranged from 5 to 30 degrees Kuhr. below zero.

Hereford breeder* in the United ■States have publicly pledged themselves to make steers of 200 of their best grade bull calves this se son f r the purpose of showing as fat bullocks in two years time a. ainst shorthorns wt the Chicago show. Tbe Eedcliffe Estate, situate near the Hiver Styx, in Canterbury, was recently submitted to auction. The estate comprised 485 acres, and was ■subdivided into sections ranging in size from six to thirty-four acres. The highest p; ice per acre realised was ,£OO l()s, a d the lowist £3O. The t‘>t>d amount of the sale was .£13,955. 'J ho principal buyers were farmers in nhe neighborhood.

Tire following is brought to (ho notice of tl ose farmers who look with doubt and suspicion at the collection of Agricultural statistics:—ln ’Melbourne lately an uncommon occurrence tO( k place At one of the auc tion-rooms 1500 bags wheat, 600 hags flour, 800 bags oats, 500 bags p as. and 300 bags barley were offered, but not one single bag was disposed of. Another auction sale also held appears to have been no better Doubtless a, good deal of the feeling which has resulted so unsatisfactorily may he traced to an anxietv on the part of dealers to 1 e in possession of the Government agricultural statistics before operating any fur'her in such produce and lienee the complete blank that occurred in the day’s trade. There grows a tree in Chili from the 1 a k of which a first-rate so p is procured ; hut owing to the recklessness of the Chilians in destroying the tree, it is fast disappearing from its atural ba it. It is asserted that, for d: er-sir.g wool and silk, chemical scienco has discovered nothing so good as the product of this tree, i'nron Von Mul'er, the well-known Victorian b tanist, affirms that the tree would thrive in Australia and in parts of New Zealand There is an nnlimi e.l demand for the soap in England and France, and of course in two such great woolproducing countries as New Zealand, Victoria and N< w South Wales it would also meet with a very ready sale

Several high class herds in "England ate notified for sale, especially tln.se of tenant farmerr who are leavii g their holdings. ()t actual sab s mention is made ef tie polled cow Blackbird, a reven-year-ohl p izo animal, having been purchased for the Hon. M. H. Cochrane, of (V.mpion, Canada (of shorthorn renown) for 200 guineas. Mr Cochrane is disposing of the whole of the animals in his shorthorn herd, of the Dnehesw, Wild Eves, Kirklevington, and Warrington, tribes.