AGRICULTURAL ITEMS.

Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 1268, 30 April 1880, Page 3

AGRICULTURAL ITEMS.

Thotfe who were fortunate enough to obtain portions of the Australian butter brought over in the freezing-room of the Strathleven are anxiously awaiting the next consignment. Much of what is now sold in the Metropolitan markets as butter 13 net butter at all, but a conglomeration of every variety of fat. The same may be said of a goad deal of the butter sold in America. There numerous substitutes are largely manufactured, and these are put on the market with such names as oleomargarine, butterine, &c. We are told that one company alone, working under the patent of M. Mege, converted in 1876-7. as much as 500,000 lbs of fat into the so-called batter every week. Now, it i 3 an undeniable fact that many consumers are willing to pay a higher price even than the exorbitant rates now charged both here and in New York for the real article if they could depend upon its genuineness, and as it is felt that it would certainly not pay the producers in Australia to adulterate their butter there is every chance of further consignments being disposed of at a more remunerative figure than that obtained for the shipment. The carcases of 10,000 sheep brought by the Paraguay from South America have arrived at Havre in first-rate condition, and quite fit for human consumption. Two forwarded to London weighed 58tb3 and 42lbs each, and were sweet and good, dressed ready for cooking, and if hung up in an open thoroughfare no ordinary piiaaer-by would have suspected that they had been sent 7000 miles after being killed.

The total number of holdings in this colony are 26,126, but of these there may Be classed as town and suburban G076 holdings of Ito 10 acres. The holdings from 10 to 50 acres number STOO, and all the rest put together 14,350. Of the working population in New Zealand very nearly one-third—4B to 150 —-are employed in agriculture and grazing; while in Victoria only about onefifth—7s to 377—are so employed. The average yield of wheat per acre is five and a half bushels in Russia, twelve in the United States, twelve and a half in Austria, sixteen and a half in France, and twenty-nine and a half in Great Britain. In the United States the average yield might easily be doubled, but the cheapness of the land, the use of machinery, and the cost of fertilisers, makes it cheaper to cultivate larger areas rather than to work for larger averages. Horses increased in Great Britain from 301,000 in 1870 to 443,000 at the present time, and yet they are much higher in price now than then, and were it not for the disastrous season there, the advance would be still greater. The straw of rye in Pennsylvania is said to be as valuable as the grain, and the demand for the straw for the manufacture of paper 13 so great in that State that farmers have very largely increased their acreage of this crop- The yield for the present year i 3 estimated at 3,500)000 huahels.