KING COUNTRY FARMING

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 614, 16 March 1929, Page 27

KING COUNTRY FARMING

NOXIOUS WEEDS PROBLEMS TADMARUNUI, Friday. In common with most other parts of the Dominion the King Country is experiencing great trouble through noxious weeds, and farming operations are greatly affected in some localities. Ragwort and blackberry are the principal offenders, though foxglove is not unknown. Ragwort has been particularly bad this season, and the Kaitieke County Council took steps to secure a share of the cinnabar moth, which is expected effectively to deal with this pest. Dr. David Miller, chief of the Government Entomological Department, has advised the council that, there are only supplies of the moth sufficient at present to allow of three distributing points for the country, two in the North Island, and one in the South. Next year it was hoped there would he supplies large enough to make the insects available wherever required. The Government also advised the council that it was doing all it possibly could to cope with the spread of noxious weeds on Crown lands. For its last testing period the Kaitieke Herd-testing Association supplies the following figures: —Herds tested. 66, cows tested 1,417; association averages—cows 1,417, milk 7481 b, fat 3.701 b, test 4.50 per cent.; highest individual herd —cows 34, milk 93411), fat 52.241 b, test 5.59 per cent.; lowest Individual herd —cows 27, milk 5631 b. fat 21.351 b, test 3.86 per cent.; highest individual cow—milk 1,2151 b, fat 75.331 b, test 6.2 per cent.; lowest individual cow —milk 3901 b, fat 11.701 b, test 3 per cent.

The recent rains have had a most beneficial effect on farming operations generally, and the prospects for an abundance of winter feed are really good. Sowings of turnips are doing well, and excellent crops of hay and ensilage were harvested.

There has been a demand for fat lambs, and apart from the ordinary sales, buyers from the works have made big purchases direct from the farms. Inquiries seem to emphasise the fact that there will he a shortage of stock in the King Country this year, partly due to the large exportations of sheep, and in the case of cattle to the large slaughtering of calves for veal.

The British Empire is now producing 30 per cent, of the world’s raw cotton. With the vast irrigation works which are being constructed in the Sudan, and the developments in East, West and South Africa, the Empire will shortly be self-contained as far as cotton is concerned.