AGRICULTURAL.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1062, 1 February 1883, Page 2

AGRICULTURAL.

(By our Special Reporter.) WAITOHI. Continued.

Adjoining Mr Mitchell’s farm, Mr W. "Walker has about 1220 acres of land, partly freehold, and partly leasehold. It is divided into about 20 paddocks, there being a many as 300 acres in one, and about 500 acres of it have grown crops this j oar: 400 being under wheat, and 100 under oats. Mr Walker has a large assortment of the b*s agricultural implements and machinery that

ean be got for money, and, however well they may originally be constructed, ho always manages to make improvements in them. He is a practical engineer himself, and has a forge on the farm, iu which he repairs the machines, and makes such alterations and improvements as he thinks advisiblo. He also shoes his own horses, and does everything else that is required on the farm. I saw a good many specimens of his handiwork in the shape of improvements on machinas, and must say indeed they were very ingenious, He has an Australian chaffeutter, made to his order by Messrs Andrews and Sevan, in which his own suggestions and improvements have been adopted, and it is certainly much better than other machines of the kind I have seen. It can turn out four bags of chaff, which it cleans and screens, every three minutes, filling and packing the bags at the same time. This machine is well adapted for persons who have a large quantity of chaff-cutting to do, or for persons who cut chaff for hire. Besides this he has 3 reaping machines, 1 grass stripper, 2 Eeid and Gray corn-drills, 3 treble furrow ploughs, and two large waggons, and ha keeps 3 fourhone teams always at work. Ho cuts all his own straw into chaff, never wasting any of it. His farmyard is the best supplied with out-houses of any I have seen.

A little further ou I came to the residence of Mr Charles Nicholson one of the nicest places in the district. There is here a very good house, and its surroundings are capitally laid out. The farm contains 700 acres ;of which 150 acres are under wheat, and 20 acres under barley. The crops were looking splendidly when I visited, and ought to result in a splendid yield. About half-a-mile further on, on the same road, is Mr David Young’s farm of 350 acres, divided into 13 paddocks. It has a good dwelling house on it, with a flower garden and some fruit trees. There is also a good stockyard and out-houses, and taken as a .’whole the farm appears to be very well looked after. Mr Young had 200 acres of it under crop this year, 80 of which were in wheat and the balance in oats and Parley. The crops looked fine, and lam sure will thrash well this year.

Mr Evan Chapman’s farm is within a quarter of a mile further on. It contains 250 acres, and has all the appearance of being excellently worked. Considerable improvements have been made by Mr Chapman about his house lately. It is a very nice substantial cottage, standing in about 50 chains from the main road, in a spacious paddock. A carriage drive has been recently made to it, and the ground in front of the house is well laid out and planted with trees and flowers- In a few years it will be a fine place. , The fences are well kept on the farm; and the land, so far as I could see, appeared to have received careful treatment. Mr Chapman had 75 acres under wheat and oats this year. Water is obtained by sinking 60 feet, but there is a good supply of water in a central position on the farm in a creek which has been dammed up. In fact it would bo difficult to find a farm or a large paddock in this district through which a dry creek does not run, and this leads me to the conclusion that the proposed irregation scheme can easily be carried out by lotting water run info these creeks. By this means every farm in the district will be supplied with water.

The next farm I visited was tbo most interesting I have seen. It was the farm of Messrs James and Thomas Orr, and what gave the place special interest is the fact that an industry which I had not hitherto met was shown to me there. The industry to which I allude is bee-farming, and it is carried on to a large extent here. This is under the control of Mr Thomas Orr who very kindly showed mo the working of it, and I believe he carries it on more for amusement than for profit. Two years ago he began with 4 swarms of bees, and when I visited there he had 100 hives, in a good healthy condition and likely to multiply with equal rapidity in the future. Here is a problem. If 4 swarms increase in 2 years to 100 swarms what would the increase be in 50 years? I give it up myself. Mr Orr seems to have devoted a great deal of atten. tion to the bees. It is said that some great philosopher once wanted to pry into the secrets of honey-making, and for that purpose had constructed a glass hive so that he might see the bees at their work. But his efforts were in vain. The bees probably saw what he was driving at, and felt that it would not be desirable to let their secret bo known to him for fear he would set up an an 'opposition shop, and so they resented his inquisitiveness by coating the inside with wax till it was impossible for an outsider to see what their domestic arrangements were. If that philosopher had come to Mr Thomas Orr’s apiary he would not have the least difficulty in acquiring the knowledge he stood so much in ueed of; that is if he could pick up anything from seeing the bees at Work. I cannot convey a very distinct idea of the improvements which Mr Orr has made in the hives. The hives consists of boxes with shaped roofs, and in the end a piece of glass is inserted, outside of which there is a slide. The slide need only be removed to obtain a view of the interior of the hive, and thus Mr Orr is enabled to see when a hive is ready to swarm or when it is full of honey. When he finds out that a swarm is ready to leave he manages to remove the bees to an empty hive, and consequently has no bother in hunting them, and the bees settle down in their new home wilhout having the seductive music of tin-kcttling, played to domes'icite them. In the winter time, when they run out of honey, Mr Orr feeds them on syrup, covers the hives over with canvas, and attends to their wants generally Tliis season has been remarkably good for bees so good has not , been experienced for many yean and it is very likely that when I ugain visit t! g apiary it will have considerably increased. I believe that if Mr Orr likes he can make a

very profitably industry. I am tol l that a s 'arm of bees is worth £l. If so, were Into sell all (he swarms of. o:C year now that he has 100 hives, he would make a nice thing out of it, without taking into oonsideratioa the q mutity of limey they could pro duce, which I belie re could easily be sold at 5d or 6d per lb. As regards the farm itself, ’it con’iats of 220jaores of good land, 80 acres of which has grown a splendid crop of wheat this year. At the back of the house Mr Orr showed me a large heap of the bones of a whale, which some years ago was foolish enough to venture ashore somewhere on t e sea beach. lam not prepared to tay wlmi k duced the whale to come ashore. It may be that it got a taste for the picturesque, a-cl wanted to explore the top of Mount Cook ; it may be that it was tired of the ocean wave or of its life and took suicidal notions into its head, or it maybe that the poor deluded fooldidnot know where it was going, like many other animals (hat pretend to higher intelligence, and just ran ashore incautiously, without taking the cons-quences into consideration. Of course this is all hypothetical, but there is one fact mixed np in the affair and that is : the whale never went back. I', remained ashore, and Mr Orr carted its bones to his farm at Waitohi, which bones he reduces to dust with chemicals and makes manure of them. This manure is excellent, and is not used except for special purposes. I could write freely on the hospitality with which I was treated by Mrs Orr, but it L a delicate subject; suffice it to say that I left much refreshed by my stay there, I must not overlook the agricultural implements I saw there. I was shown a mill for crushi-g oats, which can crush liO bushels per hiur. This, I believe, is let occasionally on hire, snd the price charged is Id per bushel. Previously to Messrs Orr getting the machine the price of crushing was 3d per bushel, so (he machine deserves mention, inasmuch as that it benefits tbeneighbo-s all round. They have also a number of Mcdherry corn drills, a threshing machine, and a number [of agricultural implements.

(To be continued.)