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Poverty Bay Standard, Volume I, Issue 70, 16 July 1873, Page 2

Eably Vegetables.—The Dunstan Times says: —“As instancing the extraordinary mildness of the season we may mention that not only cauliflowers, but green peas in a high state of perfection, were brought into this town yesterday. These were procured from the garden belonging to Mr. Richard Felton, on the Cromwell-road, who has gained and maintained an excellent reputation for the production of both early and late vegetables and fruits.”

The revenue, says the Hawke's Bay Herald, from the reserves set aside for educational purposes this year, together with that from reserves already in existence, is calculated at £l,OOO annually. The following suggestive advertisement appears in the Evening Post, italics and all » —“ Just landed—Extra stout overcoats; just the thing for the front, and bullet proof behind-, to be had,” Ac.

Tde Napier says»—lt is rumoured that the General Government have resolved to commence the system of free immigration on and after the Ist of July, and that instructions in accordance with this resolution have been forwarded to the Agent-General. Instructions have been sent to Collectors of Customs throughout the colony to prevent the exportation coastwise, except as dutiable goods, of the small pieces of iron punched out of boiler plates, the authorites having reason to suppose that disaffected natives are collecting them to serve id lieu of bullets for rifles.

The name of R. J. Creighton, Esq., M.H.R., was among the list of passengers yosterday, per Ladybird. Mr. Creighton proceeds to Dunedin as editor of a new morning daily journal, which will be shortly issued in that city, under very powerful interests. — New Zealand Herald.

A London telegram of March 6, in the American papers, says .—“ A rumor is afloat that the Marquis of Lorne and Princess Louise have separated from incompatibility of temper; |that the Princess is in a religious retreat near Windsor, and the Marquis has gone abroad. No authority is given for the report. Wellington’s new public hall, or theatre, cost in erection £4,538. It is let to Mr. Bennett at £6O a month. There is land attached which is let on building lease, of which 98ft is let for twenty-one years, at £l, £1 10s and £2 per foot per annum for respective periods of seven years each.

The Pbobable Disbuftion in the Free Church of Scotland.—A correspondent of the Northern Ensign says : —“ We have had it from the best authority that the Rev. Dr. Smith, and the Rev. Moody Stuart, and others of the more moderate anti-unionists in the South, have notified to Dr. Begg that, if he is to break up the Free Church on the mutual eligibility scheme at the next General Assembly, they are not only not to follow him, but that they will oppose such rash conduct with all their might. The more ingenuous of the Ross-shire anti-union ministers have likewise warned the Rev. Mr. Kennedy, Dingwall, not to commit them to any rash measures he may think proper to take with reference to a disruption of the Free Church, should the mutual-eligibility proposal become law, for that they can see nothing in that proposal that would warrant such a deplorable proceeding as the rending of the Free Church.” Anthony Tbollope spent a night in a cor-rugated-iron hotel on the road from Queens-town to Clyde, when he was en route to Dunedin fifteen months ago ; and in his recently published work tells an anecdote which forcibly illustrates a drawback to which such buildings are subject. He says “ The rooms, of course, are small; and every word uttered in the house can be heard throughout it, as through a shed put up without divisions. And yet the owners and frequenters of these iron domiciles seem never to be aware of the fact. As I lay in bed in one of these metal inns on the road, I was constrained to hear the Erivate conversation of my host and hostess who ad retired for the night. *So this is Mr. Anthony Trollope,* said the host. The hostess assented; but I could gather clearly from her voice that she was thinking much more of her back hair than of her visitor. ‘ Well,* said the host, ‘he must be a fool to come travelling in this country in such weather as this.* Perhaps, after all, the host was aware of the peculiarity of his house, and thought it well that 1 should know his opinion. He could not have spoken any words with which at that moment I should have been more prone to agree.” “ Old Colonial," in the Weekly News thus writes:—A considerable amount of attention is being directed at the present time to extending our sheep farms and sheep runs. The high prices which have been obtained lately for wool has been the cause of this stir amongst sheep farmers. It should be remembered, however, that a farmer who is making a new farm in a new part of the country, and intends breeding sheep, and who has been accustomed to the breeding of merino sheep, and would be satisfied if he raised not more than 75 lambs from 100 ewes, had better have nothing to do with Leicester, Southdown, or Cotswold sheep. The poorest merino sheep he can find, provided they are healthy, will be best adapted to hie mode of treatment. When he is prepared to give better feed and more care than he can at first, he should then get some improved merinos; and, if he keeps on improving in his system of management, he will, in time, be prepared to keep a still more artificial breed, and will at length succeed with Cotswolds, Leieesters, or Southdowns. Whether it will pay him to keep sheep that require so much more care and better feed than merinos, will depend entirely on the demand which exists for mutton, lambs, Ac. These heavy-bodied sheep are not adapted to roughing it on poor land like the merino sheep. Menno wool can be raised on poor land and in countries which are little better than deserts, while the long combing wool, good mutton, and early lambs, can only be profitably raised in the better farmed and more highly-cultivated parts of the country, and nearer to a ready market for mutton. Those farmers who live in the old-settled wheat-gJowing sections of the countiy, and who cannot restore or keep up the fertility of their farms without keeping more stocK, will have to decide between dairying or sheep-growing. To raise the latter to the best advantage, artificial grasses and clean, dry, cultivated land are needed, or precisely what is needed to produce remunerative crops of wheat. In feet, the more mutton we produce the more wheat shall we grow per acre. The same arguments apply with equal force to the keeping of other kinds of stock. If high-bred animals are kept, improved pastures must be provided before the keeping of such stock will be foqnd profitable.