FARMING NOTES

Wairarapa Age, 29 March 1920, Page 7

FARMING NOTES

• At the Wellington hide sale last week, the prices for heavy and medium ox showed an advance of Id per lb.

Mr. W. H. Wilton has sold his property of 200 acres at West Taratahi to Mr. L. A. Bishop at a satisfactory price.

The New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency Co., Ltd., will.hold their autumn cattle fair next month. Entries already comprise 500 head of well-bred cattle.

Potato crops are turning out fairly well in tho Ohau district, the yield being as high as ten tons per acre on some of tho farms. A little blight has developed, but affects only a small percentage of tho crop.

Tho highest bid at auction on Saturr day for Mr. O'Connor's property i at Tinui was £l7 per acre. The reserve was a little above this amount. The highest bidder was Mr. Bellisß, who has an adjoining property.

Mr. R. McLaren, of Clareville, intends milking about 150 cows on his Kahautara property next season. The cream will be separated and taken by motor lorry to Featherston, and- from there railed to the Mauriceville butter factory.

Irish blight has made its appearance among the potato fields in the Eakanui district (states the Oamaru Mail). The attack is in an aggravated form, attributable to the recent wet weather, and there is an instance of on© patch of four acres being totally ruined.

Tho Cambridge Co-operative Dairy Company is purchasing dried milk machinery in America for a new central factory near Cambridge. It is anticipated that tho manufacture of dried milk will bo commenced next season.

If heifers due to calve in September are now wprth £l4 17s 6d, a price obtained at the last Carterton sale, what are cows likely to be worth at the opening of next season? It makes prospective dairymen* shudder when they think of what it is going to cost them to commence operations.

The present daily intake of milk at the Hamua Cheese Factory is 1200 gallons, from which 16 export cheeses are manufactured. In the flush of the season the daily supply reached 1800 gallons, and tho output of cheese from this amount being 23 exports. The; average test for \the last period was 4.1.

An Ohau settlor stated to a Chronicle representative that most people thought that because butterfat was higher in price than formerly the dairy farmer was making a fortune. As a matter of fact, he ■'said, tho farmer was doing much better a few years ago with butterfat only half its present price. Tho increase* in price had not kept up with'the cost Of living.