SPECULATIVE FARMING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 211, 23 August 1862, Page 5

SPECULATIVE FARMING

__ Farmers are generally very fond of speculating in their operations. If one particular kind of grain is in demand one year, undue attention is bestowed upon its cultivation next season, and if any description of grain is low in price one;year, nobody cares to cultivate in that which follows. It is all very well for the farmer to use his discretiou and judgment as to what crops are likely to bs mast profitable, but ia a limited market, which is always liable to be glutted, aad in a country where the; farmers are all likely to base their calculations on the same data, disappoint.neat very often succeeds speculation on the future price of any particular kind of grain. Although, therefore, it is quite as legitimate for the farmer to speculate as the merchant, the farmer runs a risk which the merchant is not liable to. The latter can generally conclude what he undertakes in a few days or hours, whereas the former requires several mooths. It is, therefore, not prudent in the farmer to specvlate to that extent which he frequently does in this aud the other colonies.

The natural consequences of speculation in farming operations is, that whatever description of grain if low in price one year, is neglected the following season, for the sake of cuiti rating extensively some other crop which has paid batter, but which in its turn is brought down in price, to the injury of a large number who have all joined in the same speculation. We have seen almost every kind of crop reduced to an unprofitable price by this kind of speculation. Because, for example, wheat has this year been low in price, we understand that in some districts oats have been more extensively sown than usual, and the result will probably be that, after next harvest, oats will be down to an unremunerative price. As we have on a previous occasion pointed out, the safest plan for each to follow is to sow a fair proportion of each description of graiu, then the wants of the community would be not merely better supplied, but the risk of loss to the cultivator would be avoided, and his property rendered more secure.— -Yeoman.

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Eaei, Canning.—Lord Canning died oa the 17th of June. He was born afc Gloucester-! xlge. Brompton—a house now incorporated -with tha Kensington. Museum—ia 1812, the third son of the celebrated George Canning. Ec -was educated at Christ Church, Oxford, at vvhicti college Mr. Gladstone, and Lor.'s Dalhouaie and Elgin were at the same time. Lord Canning, then Mr. C inning (for the peerage which his father had earned was given in the first instance to his motherj, entered upon public life in 1830, when he appeared in the House of Commons as member for Warwickshire. la Septjrabe^, 1535. he had married Charlotte, dauifh'er of Charles Lord Stuart <!e Rothesay, and sister of the Marchioness Dowager of Waterford. In 1837 his motlitr died, and he want to the Upper House. When Sir Robert Peel came into po-ver, in 1811, lie was appointed Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs. He held this post till 13*5, in° spite of the inconvenience of having both, tue Secretary and the Under-Secratary of tha same department in the House of Lords Of c >ur.>j, Lori Aberde-ja could not 02 spared from t:i" Forel^a-oSca, rail It may be imagined both tiat LoixT Carmine would feel anxious to dutiniruish tibuself in the saui* political line as his father, and that Sir Hobert Paol, in teuier in.-injry of the past, would he particukriv ready to further the polities! aspirations* of George Oaunmsr's son. For a month or two. in the reconstructed Ministry of Sir Robert Peel, Lord Canning was Chief ComruLssioner of Woxls and Forests : but in July, 1843, he resigned with his party, and, das dining high office at the hands of Lord Derby, returned with the Coalition Ministry in 1853. la the Government of Lord Aberdeen "Lord Canning was Postmaster-General, and distinguished himself as far as possible in such a department by his administrative capacity. He worked very hard, made maav changes in the intenml organization of the dei>artraenT.Xnd set on foot the practice of submitting annually to parliament a report of the work, and especially the progress, achieved by the Post-office. He held the same appointmeut for a short time in Lord Palmerston's Cabinet, but it berime necessary, as the year 1855 wore oa, to select a successor to Lord Dalhousie, and none seemed so fit to send out as his college frian 1, Lord Canning. The peculiar fitness of this selection lay in tin fact that the Go-vernor-Generalship was the destined prize of which George Canning had been baulked. He had received the appointment, he was on the eve of starting for India when Lord Castlereagh committed suicide, and the foreign office was lr-ft without a head, Canning, a comparatively poor mau, gave up the chance of acquiring a fortuns ia the splendid post of viceroy, in order to win a name for himself at home, and perhaps to reach the premiership. He did win a name, and he did become First Minister, but he died « in the effort. These were events whiefc Lord Palperston, as a Canningite, could not forget, and Lord Canning, otherwise well qualified for the post, was appointed to succeed Lord Ualhousie. He be^an his reign in India on the last day of February, 1555. The events of it are S3 recent, and so well*known to our readers; that it can scarcely be necessary for us now to recall the-n. Lord Canning, who was raised to an earldom in consequence of his services in India, has left no family. His titles, therefore, die with him, and the li.ie of George Gmnins now survives only in Lady Clanricarde anil her children. His iordship died at his residence in Gr«3vonor-squar?. (Earl Canning was buried ia Westminster Abbey on the 21st June. No crowd gathered, but the illustrious dead was kid in the grave of his £uher amid the tears of statesmen and friea Is who knew his public and his private ,worth.)— Home Xews. Permanent Exhibition is Ppjus.—The project for a permanent Exhibition in Paris, where specimens of the manufactures and products of every country -will be collected in one spcaious buildine* in order tliat dealers and consumers from all parts of the world may see them, has met with the entire approval of the Emperor Napoleon 111. "The Ministers of Finance and of Commerce and Agriculture haTe issued the necessary authority for^carryin"out the undertaking. A* special license Las beea granted by the above Ministers for the adnmsion of all foreign products free of duty, wifh liberty to reexport them without payment of duties, or "to sell them on the spot on paying the duties imposed by the new international tariff. The whole of the capital amounting t« £600,000, has been subscribed in France! The palace, which is in course of Construction, ne.\r th* railway station of Auteuil in Paris. wiE be opened for the purposes of the Exhibition early in th> summer of ISS3. It is stated that the building will surpass in size the present International Exhibition. The amount of space allotted to France and several other Continental countries has already beau taken up. It is proposed that all products 'and manufactures of the same nature shall be classified, and placed in juxta-pesition, so that those of different countries may be compared by intending purchasers. — Tinus, 21st June. . r . Murder at Eagleha.\tk.—Amrehessios of the Murderer.—lnformation was received on Sunday mght by the police that during the evening a man named James Pulling had been shot dead by Henry WiUiam Bignell. The particulars, as far as we could learn, are that the decaased went to the tent of Bignell, at Little Devonshire Gully, and refused to leave on being requested to do so, and after some altercation Bignell fired at tho deceased, with a double barrelled pistol. The shot took effect in the left breast of the deceased, and he die! instantly. Bi^rxell was at once arrested. It is rumored that tha deceased and the murderer had beea mates, and taat a jealous feeling in reference to his wife was e^-r----taiued by Bignell, and that they (Bignell aud las wife} had been quarrelling duriug the day. An inquest will be held by the Coroner.— Bendigo Advertiser Loxdos is just now in the full tide of an unprecedented success. A season so biight in attraction, so abounding m festivity, has not been known to living man— Athenaum. "

At Coxstaktikople the Sultan presented the Prince of Wales with a magnificent nargkUeh which he (the Prince) had smoked. It is gorgeously chased and thickly diamond-studded—its estimated value being nearly £3000. Ordering a Wife.—A Man Draws ox a Firm for a Wife.—A few days since (says an American paper), a respectable business firm "in Water-street received a letter from a customer near Youngstown,* enclosing an order for—a Wife. The customer was rich, middle-aged, a, Dutchman, and a widower. He said he wanted a 'wife right off, and had no time to look look out for one ior himself, bat should be in town in the course of a day or two to marry the woman, which he depended on his city friends having ready for him. Such an order rather took the merchants aback, but the man was too good a customer to disoblige. As they had no supply of the article on hand for sale, one of the firm went out to hunt it up, and at an intelligence office got trick of a girl who could s^eak German and English, was tolerably good-looking, and very much wanted to find a husband. A bargain was struck. The Dutchman came in, found the article ready for him, approved of it, got married, and took his curious Purchase home with him. We did not iearn whether the firm charged a special fee, or a per centag* commisiion on the articl«,j} " ««"«*.