TO CORRESPONDENTS.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume I, Issue 8, 23 February 1867, Page 2

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

A Farmer. —Marl was much more frequently employed in England in ancient than it has been in modern times. Why its use has been discontinued we know not. Pliny mentions that marl was used in Britain for the improvement of the soil. Columella, who wrote a great deal on agriculture, thus makes mention of it ■— “If you are provided with no kind , 0 f dnng it wnl'be of great advantage to throw chalk or marl upon such places as abound in gravel, and then you will be enabled to raise most excellent crops of corn.” Y. Z. Stafford is the modern Walpole, and he is doing his utmost to cause that political degradation spoken of by Arristotle, which he says is produced by appropriating the offices of state to serve the purposes of an individual or a ! class. An Agriculturist. —We are of your opinion that Farmers Clubs ought long, ago to have been established in their district to superintend periodic 1 shows of stock and produce, ploughing mathes, &c. At these shows prizes should be given. A moiety of which should be vo+“d by the rovmcial Council. We shall refer in a futureissue to what is done in France with reference to this subject. We may mention here that in Prussia there are some three hundred land-owners unions, which hold meetings, publish reports, distribute prizes, circulate books, and correspond with each other : there are also five agricultural universities, ten schools of agriculture, seven schools for teaching the cultivation of flax, six spinning schools, besides schools for the culture of the vine, for the breeding of sheep, and a large number of veterinary insti Unions of a high character. There arc also forty-six model farms distributed throughout all the provinces, for the sake of showing the neighboring peasants, by practical demonstration, the profitableness of improved methods of tillage. M. P.—The Vagrancy Act of the last session of the General xVssembly is unconstitutional and ought to bo repealed. It was not required except perhaps in the gold-fields and only there as a temporary measure. There is a disposition on the part of our rulers not only to ever whelm us with laws as well as taxation, but, what is worse, to place too much discretionary power in the hands 6f the police. “Nothing,” says Lord Brougham “is more perilous than occasional legislation upon Constitutional matters, and making laws, which permanently affect the rights of .the people, for the purpose of 'meeting a temporary difficulty.” Seedsman writes, “We remember a story of a French showman who used to exhibit a painting in front of his show of an enormous Boa Constructor, and when the visitors were inside he would come forward and state that whether it was the climate, a change of food or confinement lie knew not,-but the most extraordinary change had taken place in his Boa, for from being of the size of the picture in front of (he show it had dwindled down to the small thing in the veal ho held between his finger and thumb. Of course the audience were so amused with the story that when they did not betray the trust which he said lie implieitedly reposed .upon'their good faith. We bought some seeds in Wellington, which, instead of coming up as the Lobelia Spcciosa or the Lobelia Cardinalas, for instance, appear as small animals of about six inches in height, and we suppose it is the result of some peculiarity in the season, change of climate or of soils, for we feel convinced no blame can attach to a respectable seedsman transacting his business in the Empire City of the Colony of New Zealand,”