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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume V, Issue 64, 17 March 1870, Page 3

Salmon. — A Hobartown paper of Feb. 26, says : — Sir Eobert Officer, one of the Salmon Commissioners, reports that he has sevenl times seen salmon., leaping in the Derwent. Once, when some dozen persons were looking from the front window of his house, severarfish,. their identity with the salmon to his mind being beyond a doubt, were seen very distinctly leapiug in the water.

Fla.x. — A correspondent, writing to an Otago paper regarding the cultivation of flax, gives the following hints, which he says are the results of twenty years' observations: — I observed, whenever soil was laid over the roots of flax, either in the operations of fencing or the forming of road lines, the growth of the plant has been greatly increased, even although the top dressing used was in mimy instances nothing but poor clay. The opening of ditches olso, in i the operation of fencing or otherwise, has a most beneficial i-ffect, by admitting air to the roots, which is one of the most powerful agents in all cultural operations. The system I would a<)opt would be to open ditches ten or twelve feet apart, and about two and a half feet derp, and the same in width, and (o spread the soil taken out of the ditches over the surface amongst the roots of the plants. If manure, such as bone-dust, could be applied at the rate of from 5 to 6cwt. per acre, the increase of groth would soon repay the outlay. The openiug of so many ditches may be objected to, on account of fieir tendency to dry the land too much ; but I am convinced the admission of atmospheric air to the roots will more than compensate for the want of moisture, and draining in many localities is much wanted. Those having land under flax may soon prove the value of the above suggestions. The cultivation of flax land will tend greatly to increase the groth of grasses and thereby increase feed for cattle, which seldom eat flax unless they are short of better' feed.

Oxe DAT, in tlie end of February, the thermometer in Melbourne registered a maximum heat of 138 decrees in the sum, and 102 degrees in the shade.