GENERAL NEWS.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXI, Issue 8731, 4 February 1907, Page 1

GENERAL NEWS.

Otago farmers hare evidently giren | whole-hearted support to ilio Mutual | i Fire Insurance business in connection ! with the Now Zealand Farmers’ Union, j Since the date of formation, 20 months J ago, some 400 policies, covering pro-1 porty to the value of £IOO,OOO, have I been issued. ij A grower of the best apples in the | West of England has just sold his | fruit from his small holding for £3OO | to a London dealer. The fruit farm | from which the apples were gathered I consists of live acres of land planted I with dwarf fruit trees. Only 501 apples were allowed to mature on each J tree. Yet at the rate of Is per dozen j only, the yield was equal to £CO per | acre. | A striking example of how a grain of | sjed will multiply has occurred on the i farm of Mr James Wylie, of Areegra, | Victoria. .In 1902 one of his sons | secured a handful of Manitoba wheat I from a friend. Among the seed was a I single grain of oats. Thi s was planted I and carefully protected; and it grew f into a; line stalk. The grain was put | aside, and planted the following season || with satisfactory results. Each sue- Is seeding year the quantity grown has > Increased, and this harvest a yield of! 11 bags of cals was obtained. The |

average was 10 bags to the acre, and the result would have been, much better but for the fact that a wind storm broke down portion of the crop. The best yields of Algerian oats in that district are not more than eight bags to the acre. Mr Wylie regards this as a * record demonstration of {lie productivity of Manitoba oats. Ireland a gracing country About 75 per cent, of the whole aroa h deputed to agriculture. This amounts to about 15,000,000 acres. About 71 per c-duv. of this is devoted to pasture about 15 percent, to hay, and about 15 per cent, to the production of ail othei crops. The acreage devoted to hay and pasturage has been increasing for many years, and the acreage devotid to other crops h:.r, been decreasing. Oats arc the most important grain and cattle the most important live stock. There are only' a few large farms in Ireland. Figuring on the farms of more than oue acre in size, the acreage is 29 acres, which is less than half the average size of farms in England, Many of the Hew - England, N.S.W., districts are prolific producers of potatoes. As lor big things being done on small holdings, a few' instances can be mentioned. Mr W. Moore, of Guyra, who has 40 acres, about 23 acres of which are under cultivation; last year dug and sold 150 top.’, of marketable potatoes. Those were disposed of at prices ranging from £7 10s to £8 per ton locally, which totals out at over £I2OO. Another resident of the same place (Mr James Moore) realised £l7 for potatoes taken off one acre, There are thousands of acres of good potato land in the district locked up, which, if made availaole, would be applied for teu times over.