FARM AND DAIRY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 369, 21 April 1910, Page 7

FARM AND DAIRY.

A Kurow fanner is said to have marketed nearly 400 tons of .potatoes off thirty acres at £3 10s per ton.

A large number of Southland farmers are storing oais in the hope of prices improving.

Mr. D. McGill, of Dipt.on (Southland) has just iinished threshing a splendid crop of tuscan wheat on his property, the crop panning out (ill bushels per acre.

The total wool sale in Australia and New Zealand for the past eight and a half months have been 1,750,000 bales, weighing approximately 025,150,000vb, of a value of £22.000,000.

Owing to the continued absence of rain, the country is looking very (iiy and parched (says the Waikoiuiiti correspondent of the Otago Daily Times). The grass is disappearing quickly, and as the turnip crops are poor, it looks as though all classes of stock will have a hard time during the coming spring.

It is reported that Messrs Gould and Dunnett, owners of the Sherwood Downs Estate, of 10,000 acres, have offered that -property, which is situated near Fairlie, at the back of Tiniuru, to the Government for closer settlement purposes.

An Asliburton resident, who has just returned from a trip through Southland and Otago, informed a reporter that the country is looking unusually barren in consequence of the -dry weather. ■Many of the paddocks are as bare as the roads, and turnip crops between Gore and Waimate are a failure. He is of opinion that it will be absolutely necessary for the farmers in parts of Southland and Otago to send their surplus sheep and lambs to Canterbury for .purposes of fattening them oil', as the present feed supply is very limited.

A visitor to the Tasman Valley, who has given some Uiouglit to the question of improving the Mackenzie Country for pastoral purposes, told a Lvttelton Times reporter that a great deal of the country as seen from the road is very poor, gravelly, or stony, and probably what is seen from the road is a fair sample. A lot of the plains and downs were also pretty good pastoral country, and worth improving. His idea was that the foundation of improvement must be breakwind plantations in strips across the lines of prevalent 'winds, especially to give shelter from nor'-west-ers on the good soil, so that cultivation could be carried on without fear of tie loosened soil being blown away. The growth of winter feed and shelter of the plantations should make the sheep much safer in the big snowstorms. The Government should initiate the planting, and make further planting a condition of the leases even in lieu of rent, as the country would gain more than the rent by the increased production.

Complaints about the deterioration in the bulk and quality of the apple crop have been numerous in the Horowhenua county this year, but it is satisfactory to know that tliure art: sUil some wonderfully fine growth. An illustration of this might have been seen in the Chronicle office on Saturday, where the front counter was partly covered by a giant apple brought in by Mr. Saxon, of Kereru, from his orchard. It was fourteen inches in circumference.

Profiting by the experience gained during the past few seasons, farmers in the .Ash-burton county, in common with those in other parts of Canterbury, intend sowing wheat at a much earlier date, than in former seasons. Already a comparatively large area of land is ploughed, and a large quantity of wheat will be sown at the beginning of next mouth. The autumn-sown oats are well up, and are looking particularly strong and healthy.

A contemporary states that at Ohakune enquiries for bush lands (milking areas) are continually being made. One thousand three hundred acres in the district has just changed hands at a good figure. The demand for farming land is also satisfactory.

The milk supply in the Ohakune district is reported to be surprisingly good for the time of the year. Dairy farmers are showing a iproflt of 25s per cow per month, and this from land purchased at £'.) an acre.

interesting development has taken ■place at Daleiield. A small syndicate of five members lias 'been formed for tlie purpose of co-operating in the purchase and importation of two purebred llolstein bulls. Four of the members of the syndicate are members of the Dalefield Herd-testing Association, and the herd-testing results have doubtless stimulated the desire to possess first-class cattle. The two bulls are to be shipped at San Francisco by the Uccauic line, and will be transhipped to the Union Company's steamer at Papeete. Tin; world's champion Jersey cow. C'llniitlu the Fourth's Johanna, is an American Roistein. The Dalelield fanners are strong believers in the breed.

A correspondent furnishes the Watmate Witness with the following striking evidence of the shifting and curiously unsettled character of settlement around that district during recent years. Within a radius of five miles of Mauaia, he says, not more than two people who were here 15 years ago are amongst us to-day. How is this to be explained? Quito simply. The boom in land values gave them what they deemed to be their qpportunity lor putting away a big lump of the unearned increment, after which they set out for other places. Xot until land values come down to a healthy, normal figure and the dairying lands are held in 50-acre farms, adds the correspondent, will Taranaki have reached the high tide of permanent prosperity that its vast areas of rich lands entitle it to.