FARMING NEWS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 48, 25 January 1938, Page 5

FARMING NEWS.

RURAL BAKINGS. > Collections of bobby calves in the Wai- ■ kato to the end of December exceeded • 173,C00, an increase for the season to that ■ date of approximately 9000. ! Heavy losses of lambs are being sustained by fiockowners in Canterbury as a result of pulpy kidney. In the Ellesmere district one breeder has lost 100 lambs from a flock for which there is usually a strong : overseas demand. Another has lost 30 odd and there are several eases in the same district where the deaths have run into the twenties. In North Canterbury numerous instances have been reported of losses, even in districts which are not noted for an abundance of luscious feed. The white butterfly pest is now far worse in the Opotiki district than it was in previous summers, and gardens, fields and certain field crops on which the caterpillars feed are alive with the pest, says an exohange. An Opotiki resident who saw the butterfly at its worst in the Hawke’s Bay district considers the pest to be more numerous this season in the Bay of Plenty than it ever was in Hawke’s Bay. Everywhere in Canterbury there is tremendous growth this season of potato tops, and just a little concern is being felt that this will encourage blight. There lias been little weather so far favourable to the development of blight, but it is much too early for growers confidently to think that this state of affairs will continue. As further reports come to hand concerning the wheat crops (lie recent forecasts appear as if they will bo fully realised. says a Christchurch paper. Threshing returns generally have been below those from similar properties last year, but there have been exceptions, in which they have been practically as good, and an odd one or two have been better. In the later districts, on the heavier land, where the dry weather did not have such an effect, tho crops appear as if they will yield within a few bushels of the average, though there do not appear to be many of the 69 and 70 bushel crops which help so materially to keep the general average up.