RURAL TOPICS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2154, 9 August 1907, Page 1

RURAL TOPICS.

The sparrows about the railway yard, according to the Tirnaru Herald, have learned how to poke a hole through a jute sack and trucks of grain have now to be sheeted to keep the birds from pillaging.

A sonsigment of 20 Angora goats, from Moturoa, Via New Plymouth, to Port Allurin', Napier, (says the Star) passed through Feilding the other day. The goats are to be used by a station-holder in the Napier district for eating down blackber-

Tho Launceston Examiner (Tas.) reports: “Potatoes remain a drug on the market.” The quotations at Hobart range from 30s to £2 per ton. Farmers are asking for a reduction of railway freights in order that they may be ablo to get some return for tligir crops.

"While butter of the best quality — factory made—is at present retailed in Wellington at lOd and lid per lb, the same article in the townships adjacent to where the factories are in work, such as Pahiatua, Palmerston North, and Mastertou, is retailed at Is to Is 2d.

According to report's received from Liverpool, this year’s Canadian crop of apples amounts to only 500,000 barrels, or nearly 700,000 fewer than that of last year; but the United States production shows an increase from 1.200.000 to 2.000,000 barrels, the bulk of the fruit being of high quality.

During the spring of 1005, the Bacteriological Department of the Ontario Agricultural College sent out samples of nitrogen nodule-forming bacteria in small bottles in such condition that all the farmer had to do was to mix the contents of the bottle with a measured quantity of water. Reports from all.parts of tlio country showed that in every case (2i6) where the culture was intelligently used, the result showed the wonderful effects produced by this process. The reports from the various experimenters make extremely interesting reading in view of the prejudice which was cast upon • nitrogen culture by (];e unhappy “American incident,”

' Experiments made throughout «America go to emphasise tho advantage of choosing node hut tho choicest*; seeds for cultivation) Like begets like ill every avenue of life, and whereas a shrunken matured seed will begot a in the wellmatnred seed the stored up good is sufficient to nourish the little plant until the loaves and roots have been sufficiently developed to gather food from the air and soil. It had been found in every case that a healthy plump wheat seed will resist rust far better than a seed of inferior quality. And yet, so perverse and foolish is human nature that there arc farmers who still think any old stuff is good enough.