BUSH NOTES.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9184, 5 September 1908, Page 3

BUSH NOTES.

(By "Kaitawa").

Beautiful weather still continues ' throughout the Bush district, for ,;(■ bright days and keen frosty nights still prevail. So meagre has been the rainfall during! the winter that rivers and creeks |tre now lower tnan in many a past summer. S9 wonderfully bright is the season thai <v .< may often hear settlers Mr Wragge's weather forecast, mi > expressing their fears of a recui*« i..* of the drought alleged to have t>e--n predicted by that famous meteorologist. 1 Aa a result of the continuous frosts there ia not too much feed, but wtav. there is is nourishing and the con.ii - t ion the sheep at present would' s how that they have not had a bad t irae of it during the late winter. Lambing is in full swing, and Jor that purpose weather conditions are simply ideal. Present indicatio point to a good percentage for th« mortality so far is practically nil. As the Kaitawa creamery resumed 1 its work a few days ago, the dai.y season may be stated to have begu 1 Naturally the thoughts of many o?v our settlers are centred on the price\ hutter-fat for the coming sei.im All are confident of the rosy prospect of the butter market for the outlou c is unusually bright. Many of the settlers in the Bush experience J a very bad year in the late one. Ti.u, llres, the drought, and the drop i 1 ' wool, hit some of them badly, consequently it is with a fervent hone vi better times that they nOw hail tia coming season. Dealing with dairying matters sug gests the fact that further letfislution controlling and regulating the acii <» / of dairymen is contemplated, by Pdi - liament. Surely it is timo ihn' finality in this direction was reachei, ? The country seems to be going crazy in the matter of sanitation. In iu eagerness to extirpate the obnoxious microbe It seems as if it ■: . not in killing—at least in seriously retarding the expansion of one of tti.; : mast important industries of the D - minion. Slovenly people do not cup stitute such a large proportion oi 0. r as to warrant much mo: • Stats interference in the r'egulati n of the industry. There is a de;,, seated conviction dairying that much of the legislation -actu 1 and prospective —is made for tri purpose of finding employment for a 1 over-increasing section of Statu em • ployees known as inspectors, who ri<htly or wrongly by many small sectlers in the Bush are regarded hs industrial parasites. The other day , ona of these gentlemen —usually t-> be seen smardy-attired in riJ ! braechea and wearing a look o; i u pirtance due to the possession of much official authority—called on n certain dairyman, a friend of miiit, and inspected his cowbails and yar s My friend pointed out certain improvements which ha contemplated. "I would do nothing further io tha routter, were I in your place, for should the projo ted Dairy Bill becom3 law you might have to remove your yards altogether," said the m apjetor. Inquiry by the dairynui 1 elicited the information that snoul 1 tha "Dairy Bill" be passed as us lrarners suggested, cowyards i,> future would be detached from ,imik c , save for a "race" down which th; • cjws would be taken as required inco the milking-shed, and when inilk.d turneJ through a trap-door into the paddock. If this. Bill should ever come before the Hduse it is hoped that some town member will suggest i in the interests of public health that J a huge dip containing some power- ' ful microbe-killing fluid should be attached to the race through which : all the cows ,in their turn would pass, and emerge into their stalls free,from all' bacterial impurities. , -, Speaking seriously, if the | . signs of continuing:' to be unduly ; influenced by a few "cranks" suff- \ ering badly from micro-phobia, it I will, lam asiured by mails', /dairy- , men,- redound to the injury of our 1 splendid dairying industry. j "In many parts of the Bush district 1 owrters of small level patches of | ground are to be sesn diligently removing stumps and logs. The use of high explosives had wonderfully facilitated the labours-of the settlers in clearing their land. As the stranger travels through the little Vallevs'of Kaitawa, Hinemoa, or Te Papa, he i s startled by an ear-splitt-ing explosion which awakens every echo in the surrounding hill 3, and he is not long in divining the cause, as he sees the fragments of ; some giant rjmu, or matai, flung far and wide. Those lictie cleared patches are'for the most part to be devoted to rape crops, for which both x aoil and climate are favourable