FARMING NOTES.

Waikato Argus, Volume VI, Issue 382, 14 January 1899, Page 4

FARMING NOTES.

Seldom, if ever, has more unseasonable weather been witnessed than that experienced during the past week, intermittent showers aud bleak winds, veering from north-west to south-west, bringing the temperature down until at times it has been cold and wet enough for winter. Such a visitation is particularly unfortunately at the present time, when harvest is, or should be, in full swing. Crops of oats and wheat are to be seen on all sides standing ripe and fit to cut, but the straw is seldom dry enough to work the binders, and what has been cut is standing out in stooks about the fields, and by no means improving in condition as time goes on. A change in the weather has been anxiously looked for each day, and, fortunately, it set in on Wednesday and, it is to be hoped, will continue for some time, otherwise very heavy loss will be inflicted upon our grain-growers, who have expended an unusual amount of labour and capital in the production of extensive crops, Potatoes also are suffering from the continual wet, rotten tubers being rather too frequently met with, even on high lands, and it is advisable to take up the early varieties as soon as the haulms are dead and the potato is sufficienty matured to bear handling without breaking the skin, as they will keep better in dry pits or bins than in the wet ground. For pastures, the season has been a phenominal one, the heavy supplies of milk recorded at the principal creameries testifying to the unusual flush of grass, while the absence of complaints respecting the tests, is a pretty sure sign_ that the milk contains an average quantity of butter fat. For milk suppliers, the present season is likely to prove a profitable one, and will afford a pleasant contrast to the results of last year's operations. With such weather as we have experienced, no time should be lost, after the grain crop is removed, in ploughing the stubble, as a good take of yellow or other late turnips is almos'; a certainty, particularly if the seed is drilled with a couple of hundredweight per acre of the Westfield turnip manure. By adopting this system a valuable amount of stock feed is quickly obtained, and, at the same time, the land is sweetened and eniiohed for carrying another grain crop, or being laid down in grass the following apring. The success of this system of rotation, which means the production of two crops in the one season, depends a good deal on the weather experienced during the first few months of the year; but if successful pays the farmer well, the returns per acre from land so worked showing a very marked contrast to that netted from so much farming land in Waikato, the profits from and capabilities of which are, in the majority of cases, scarcely even dreamt of. In this connection the recent importation into the district by the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency Company of a specimen of the SpaldinpEobbin's Disc Plough is an event of no slight significance. By means of this plough, which is really an adaptation of the principle of disc blades to the purposes of ploughing, an immense increase in the areas of land dealt with is the first and chief result, the new plough—in its larger sizes—being capable of turning over as many as ten furrows at once, with a particulary light draught. In stubble land the Spalding-Kobbins plough should—and, in fact, has proved itself in the South—to be a most efficient implement, and as the success of the alternate grain and root system of cropping depends very much on the rapid handling of large areas immediately after harvest, the value of the new plough, in this direction alone, can be readily estimated. Much interest will be taken in the local trials, which will shortly be carried out by the agents of the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Company. The stock and produce markets have undergone few changes during the week. Fat stock are still holding their own, sheep having advanced slightly, particularly fat lambs, which are selling at from 7s to 10s. Large drafts of fat jambs are going from the Assets Company's properties to the Auckland Freezing Works. In produce, potatoes are hardening a little, though no great improvement upon present rates—about £4 per ton—can be expected at this stage in the season. Fruit is in heavy supply aud with not too keen a demand, the jam-makers having, so far, operated to a very limited extent. Regarding the apple crop, which promises to be an abundant one, it is regrettable to find the codlin moth very much in evidence again, some orchards that were comparatively clean last season having scarcely a sound apple at the present time. Butter and eggs are selling at fair prices, fresh eggs having advanced a little during the week.