MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS.

Waipa Post, Volume I, Issue 5, 2 May 1911, Page 4

MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS.

The secretary of the Woodlands Hunt Club wrote 'to the Feilding A. and P. Association, pointing out that owing to recent legislation, hunt clubs would be unable to raise revenue at their meetings in the shape of fees from bookmakers, and asking for assistance, and for the moral support in endeavouring to get a totalisator permit. At a meeting of the A. and P. Committee, Messrs Burrell and Guthrie proposed that the association could not encourage the return of the bookmaker, nor the increase of totalisator permits ; but that the association would give the hunt clubs all possible support by offering substantial prizes for competitions. The motion was agreed to. It is rumoured that a large South Island meat works is to be closed.

The ; Riverslea correspondent of the Hawera “Star” writes : “The milk supply in this district, like other -places, is declining rapidly, and the tests though only medium are very even. There seems to be abundance of feed here, and stock on the whole are looking exceptionally well for the coming winter.” Considering conditions all round, the farming community of North Otago will doubtless be right in asserting that, for those depending for a living on the land, this year has been the most disastrous within the memory of those who can look farthest back (reports the Labour Department’s agent in Oamaru). Until about a month ago, the one hope of the season, to the farmer, lay in the potato crop, which has now been more than half destroyed by the potato grub. The Hawke’s Bay A. and P. Society lias selected Wednesday and Thursday, October 18 and 19, as the days for its spring show. This is from an American paper : “The English Royal Agricultural Show at Liverpool cleared 27,000 dollars, a great live stock show of all of the pedigree breeds of live stock, agricultural products, and machinery. No side-shows, horse racing, or any entertainments are permitted on the. grounds to detract from the benefits of the show. What a contrast to our American fairs, with their disgraceful side-shows, horse racing, and scores of attractions to draw the visitors.”

Mr B. W. Snow, the American agricultural statistician, gives an estimate of 46,334,000 as representing the number of cattle, other than milch cows, in the United States on January I, 1911, a decrease of 945,000 head from the Government figures of a year ago, while 3,045,000 below the Government estimate of two years ago. The head of pigs, as estimated by the same statistician, is 49,215,000, an increase of 1,433,000 over January I, 1910. The estimates go to prove (says the “ Drovers’ Journal ”) the longtime argument of beef shortage, and although hog growth is showing some increase under the stimulus of high prices in the past year, it will be at least another year until the trade shall have received full benefit from the effort towards increased production. Meanwhile, declining cattle production points to an alarming scarcity as probable within another year. The Tikokino correspondent of a Hawke’s Bay paper writes: “A. large portion of the Argyll Plains has again been put under crops, which now are looking fresh and green. More rain is needed, wells and streams having dried in several places. The farmers’ one hope now is that frosts may be delayed, in order that winter feed may have a chance to grow, otherwise cattle will have rather a bad time.”