RURAL TOPICS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2151, 6 August 1907, Page 1

RURAL TOPICS.

Tho Agricultural Department wil shortly have available for distribu tiou lithographed plans of model cow sheds.

Two of tho licet crops of swedes about Winchester (Canterbury) were sold recently for £7 15s and £7 an aero respectively.

Tho Government grant for dairying instruction and education in Ontario this season is £16,800. Half of this amount, will go to three dairy schools, and the other half to instruction work. .

Agricultural operations in the Marlhoroiightovvn, Tun Marina and Grovetown districts (says the Marlborough Herald) have been prosecuted under very favorable conditions, and aro well forward, the great bulk of the ploughing having been done. Tho settlers .look forward to an unusually largo and profitable yield. Attracted by the improved market, agriculturists are going in for a little more wheat than in the past, hut the staple crop will still he barley. “It pays to grow barley,” say th e settlers, “not only because of the better price, hut also because it takes less out of the land than wheat.”

The demand for farming land in Southland shows no diminution (says the Southland Times). The holder of a despised lease-in-perpetuity in the Wendon district, leased on a valuation of about £2 an acre, was offered the other day £l3 for the goodwill of his section, and he refused it.

According to an American authority, there lias been a remarkable deercaso in sheep in Europe during the last four years. England, apart from lie colonies, has suffered a loss of 15 ner cent, and in other countries the diminution has been very striking. From 1878 to 1904 Germany’s increase represented 66 per cent, and that of Austria-Hungary about 45 per cent. In Italy in 6ix years alone nearly 1,500,000 head have entirely disappeared, but France’s decrease since 1873 was kept down to 30 per cent by the establishment of the small property systejn. The chief cause of these declines in Europe is said to be the fact that wool comes to European markets from America in such favorable conditions that agriculturists cannot compete.

Cracking the skull of a sheep is a

various remedy for a di.ea.se, and yet it is stated in tho Journal of the

Board of Agriculture, says the Live Stock Journal, that certain shepherds in the north of England, and particu-

larly on tho Yorkshire moors, have neeii in the habit of adopting it to cure what they call “double scope.” Wasting diseases, it appears, duo to worms in the intestines, are attri-

buted by these mistaken men to “double scope.” What they call by this name, however, is the normal condition of the frontal sinus, a cavity in the head of tho sheep, with an inside and an outside plate of hone. Ignorant of anatomy, the shepherds in question regarded this vs abnormal, and possibly their idea that the cracking of the skull would he beneficial was based oil the assumption that it would provide a vent for gas inside the cavity.

Tho Timaru correspondent of the Lyttelton Times writes that fiourmillers interviewed on July 29tli stated that the Timaru mills were well stocked with wheat and were not vitally concerned in tho state of the market. They admitted that if they had to buy wheat at present prices they must either work at a loss or, by raising the price of flour, invite Australian competition. One miller said

that lio had an offer for the whole of his stock at a price that would pay him better than milling it hut his agreemnt with the Association as to output compelled him to decline the offer. It was considered that the local prices of wheat were too high in comjiarisoii with Liondon and Australian prices, and that holders must be speculating on a rise at Home or a short crop in New Zealand, or both. Meantime, according to the commercial cablegrams, Australian wheat could be landed at North Island ports or Dunedin and Bluff at such a price as to undersell South Canterbury wheat at the rates now asked. Winter wheats were doing badly in the Timaru district, and some were being grubbed up, and the ground was too dry for putting in spring wheat. A good rain within a month or so was neded to save the situation. One of the grain brokers raised the question whether the Government calculation of the consumption of wheat at 61 bushels per head of popuulation was not excessive. The last census of the colony showed that the flourmills ground up only 41 million bushels in tlie year. That gave an average of five, instead of six and a half, bushels per head.