Local Intelligence.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XI, Issue 671, 13 April 1859, Page 4

Local Intelligence.

The three Judges of the Supreme Court have determined on a meeting to consider together the amendments advisable in tho rules of the Court. The necessity of a Court of Appeal will probably occupy their attention. It is very desirable that the opinion of the Bench on the constitution of such a Court should be laid before the legislature at its next session. Mr. Justice Gresson sailed on Monday in the White Swan, and Judge Johnstone will accompany him from Wellington to Auckland, where the conference will be held.

Subscribers to the FitzGerald Testimonial Fund will be glad to learn that the amount collected has been sufficient for the purchase of 250 acres of land round the homestead at Springs station. Accordingl to a wish expressed in a letter from Mr. FitzGerald, this property will be settled on his male issue. We are informed that Mr. James Gregg, of Riccarton, the other day disposed of a, hive of bees weighing 80 lbs., an unusual size. The hive was swarmed in January, and,,, had the advantage of good roomy quarters, thus being enabled to increase at pleasure without throwing off fresh swarms in the meantime. Mr. Gregg states that this year's other hives are also in remarkably fine condition.

We have much pleasure in stating that after a tedjous and difficult negotiation the Lyttelton Church Building Committee has succeeded in obtaining a tender to construct the edifice complete, in stone, according to Mr.. Mallinson's design adopted at a" public meeting, for a sum not too great for the means at command. We hope soon to see the new church showing itself a conspicuous object among the buildings of the town.

Another fatal accident occurred on Friday night last. A boat with three men in it upset, and two of the lives were lost. It appears from the statement of the survivor that he was with the two unfortunate men (Allan and Lawrence) drinking together on Friday evening, and that when they loft to go clown to the wharf they took some more liquor in bottles with them. They got into the boat, a little crank clingy, to go over to Allan's place on the other side of the harbour, under sail; Before they had gone a couple of hundred yards the boat, through some unexplained cause, there being but little wind at the time, upset. The man who was saved swam in one direction and lost all knowledge of the fate of his comrades. Their screams, however, were loud enough to bring numbers of people to the beach, but unfortunately a considerable time elapsed before any boat could be found to go off to give assistance. When help arrived neither the boat nor the two men could be found, and the man who was recovered was all but gone. The bodies have not been found; but the boat was dragged up from the bottom, right side up and still containing the ballast and two bottles of gin. Allan was well knoiyn in port, but Lawrence had but lately come from Nelson.

We have to notice that the Colonists Society Discussion Class holds its first public meeting this evening at the Town Hall.

THE HABVEST,

Since we last made some remarks upon the progress of the harvest in this province, the weather has been so continuously fine, and the business of clearing our land of the crops grown thereon has so uniformly " dragged its slow length along" that we have little to communicate. We might indeed have stereotyped a paragraph worded much as the following:—Providence lias been graciously pleased to accord to U3 another week of as fine weather as ever shone from Heaven, to enable all men, be they active or lazy, to secure the produce of their fields in perfectly good. order and condition; and our husbandmen have made some progress in doing so. Now, at last, there is some prospect of our harvest coming to an end, and we propose to offer such observations on the crops as we believe will be found to be trustworthy.

The harvest itself is not yet entirely completed ; there are a few late sown oats still to be cut, and still more to be carted. Of barley there is yet some quantity to be counted'in breadth by scores of acres; but in tlie present glorious weather this must be quickly removed from the field and secured from injury from the wet weather, that must come shortly. We speak somewhat feelingly here, for in the safety of this crop depends our prospect of indulging in a bumper of home-brewed, or at least pure malt and hop ale.

The wheat crop, as we observed in a former report, is very various both iv yield and in quality. We have a considerable quantity of old on hand, and we need not doubt that we shall have a sufficiency for ourselves; but we must not count on being considerable exporters. Our oat crop is, we believe, an average one at least. The quality of the grain is generally fully as good as may be expected from Tartar oats. The weather has been extremely favourable for the ripeningl of the latter crops, and has rendered the sample of them much more uniform than could reasonably have been anticipated. The barley, we have reason to believe, is uniformly of good malting quality. For this result we have again reason to be grateful to Providence and to praise the weather; for there was certainly eight or ten weeks ago a prospect, from the backward appearnnce of portions of more than a moiety of the barley fields, that half the grain would never come to a state of ripeness sufficient to malt with the forwarder parts. That is, the different degreesof ripeness inthekernelsof the barley would prevent them from germinating together on the floor, and consequently the best art of the maltster would be baulked of making a good piece of malt. The yield of bailey is, from all appearance, about an average. Last year's vi«lu.of corn must not be our criterion in judging, but we must consider the fair average yield of the province. Potatoes are coining out of the ground cleanly and nicely, and are, we believe, uniformly good iv quality us might be expected from such a season. The yield is generally good—perhaps we might say universally so, where they could be got in iv fair condition; but such could not from the badness of the last planting season be everywhere the case, and in such situations there are deficiencies.