FARM AND DAIRY

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 141, 23 September 1910, Page 3

FARM AND DAIRY

A Woodville farmer claims to have! obtained £ls 2s 9y 4 d per cow last sea-j son, and another dairyman's return was only 3s per cow less. _ # j The Victorian Government is taking: drastic measures against the spread of: the potato disease. Produce merchants have been fined heavily for selling tubers infected with Irish blight and eel worms. I The chairman of a meeting of dairy, farmers at Woodville stated he commencc.l milkimi 12 years ago with £25 of his own monev, and borrowed the remainder at 10 per cent, to start his farm. To-day he was thankful to say he was worth' at least £300(1. And yet some people aver there is no money in milking cows. The Sydney horse buyers who attended the Farmers' Auctioneering Company's horse sale at Cambridge during last week, expressed the opinion that it is the biggest sale of its kind held in Australasia, and at the same time one of the best conducted. Speaking in reference to the quality of the horses offered, they stated that the majority of them were first-class, and a credit to the Dominion. The bee-keeping industry is assuming goodly dimensions on Banks Peninsula, residents finding it a very profitable sideline, One owner has as many as 200 hive*, ftittl another has 140, while others have lftfl. The yield in one case was 14 tons of honey. 'Proof that the business is growing is found in the fact that a shipment of upwards of £2OO worth of bee-keepers' accessories is to arrive at Ak»rna this, month. !

In discussing mortality among lambs' with an Eketahuna Express reporter, a Forty Mile Bush farmer stated that it aave'him great satisfaction to see dead iambs lying about, as it was an indication of *a large percentage Of twins and triplets, and consequently a big avttage. A pig-killing contest tttok place against time at Brampford Spoke (England) re-' eently. A butcher made a bet that he and another would kill ten pig's in dile uour, no one else to touch the pig--, kit the water to be found as required fof them. They did it in fifty-four minute*, The pigs averaged five score each, and were dressed fit for the market.

Thirty years ago the number of sheep in the British Empire was, roughly, 1*20,0!)0,000, of which Australia contributed just under 50,000,000. A reeent compilation gives the flocks of the Empire as about 200,000.000. of which the Australian Commonwealth provides close on ■half. This calculation includes Australia, Canada, Cape Colony, Ceylon. India, Natal, Orange River Colony, Transvaal, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. The total number of sheep in the world is about 480j00Oj0O0, so that the British Empire contains about 42 per cent, of the wond's sheep, as against about 25 per cent, three decades ago.

In conversation with a Manawatu Standard representative a stock authority stated that cattle were in strong demand and with short supply. There is abundance of fee*, all over the district, and he was expecting to see prices keep firm for the next twelve months or more, but drop after that. At pr sent every dairy farmer in the Manawatu district was keeping his young stock, which will be coming on the market in about two years' time from now. By then there will be a considerable increase in the numbers of .young stock with a corresponding fall in prices. Sheep were likely to be benefited by the enormous area of new country that is being felled in the Waikato and North Auckland districts. At the present time there is a strong demand from there, with good prices offering. There is also a strong demand for rams, animals that a short time back were selling at from 2% to 3 guineas now realising 3% to 4gns.~ ! The Rotoma Times gives prominencel in a. recent ise.ie to the views of a visitor i of some experience in regard to its po-l tentialities as an apple-growing country.! The yellow clav land on the Rotonia' side of.the Tailwav line for the first few miles was, Ire said, very similar to the mountain hill' and land at the back of Motueka, which was now bring put down. very largely in apples. He added that the Rotorua land lies beautifully to the l sun. According to the Times, the opinion expressed by the writer with regard! to the apple-growing possibility of the' district had been advanced by many) weighty authorities on the subject. Anumber/>f Botorua residents are already' putting down land in small areas in I apples, some of which had already pro-1 duced the finest results.

The latest issue of Weddel and Co.'s annual review on the dairy market lias some interesting references to the value of New Zealand butter at Home. It is gathered that only once since colonial butter was first placed on the English market has so high a level of prices been maintained all through the winter. The average top price from September! to April inclusive last season has been! Australian 115s, New Zealand 118s 3d 1 per cwt. The lowest level in any one' week reached last season for the,same' period of "choicest" Australian and New ■ Zealand was Loßs and llfls per cwt. re-! spectively Owing to the high! prices realised by those who sold "for- 1 ward" their outputs in tho previous | year, the colonial factories asked such Jiugh prices last August and September that very little ''forward" selling of outputs took place. This proved fortunate for the butter factories in Austra-' lasia, which consequently did far better' by consigning than by selling forward. It will be remembered that in the previous year the exact reverse took place, those which consigned not doing so well as those which sold forward. From the same source it is gleaned that there has been a remarkable development in the output of butter from the Dominion, which shows an import of nearly 1000 tons over 1904, which held .the maximum record of 15,836 tons. Last year the imports of New Zealand butter reached 1(5,705 tons, and 869 tons over the record year of 1904, whilst at the same time these high authorities state that the quality of the butter has never been so good as in the year just ended. 1