THE YEOMAN.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume II, Issue 59, 15 February 1868, Page 3

THE YEOMAN.

THE GARDENER’S CALENDAR FOR FEBRUARY. The fine rains we have had lately will ensure all small seeds to come up quick. Sow your main crop of white turnip and Swedes in rich or well-manured soil, it is the best remedy against blight. Sow early York or Imperial cabbage in rich soil in drills 20 inches apart; sow the seed thin, and when up thin them out with a hoe to ten inches; when high enough earth them up and you will have cabbage in less than eight weeks. Sow lettuce, radish, endive and spinach, plant celery in trenches, and eschalots for salads in winter. You may still plant potatoes for seed next year. Destroy all early cabbage, turnip, and radish storks and leaves, by digging them in for manure, or the blight from them will infest your autumn crops.

Bud stonefruit these showry days, and use a little fine clay round the bud before you tie it, it will help to exclude the air which kills the bud.

Sewage-grown Grass. —The Rivers Commissioners in their third report discuss the assertion which is sometimes made, that sew-age-grown grass is unwholesome, and will not make good hay. The commissioners eonsiderdered it proved that the grass is not only wholesome, but that cows fed upon it give richer milk, from which first class butter may be made. The chemist proves by careful analysis that both milk and butter are better than samples produced from the same land in its ordinary state of meadow. Hay made from sewage-grown grass is also sweet and nutritious if properly got, but there is great difficulty in full drying it during ordinary seasons. When a limited quantity of sewage or other water containing manure soaks into fertile soil, the first effect is to displace part of the water already contained in the soil, occupying its place in the interstices, when the organic matter it contains is held in temporary union with the active soil, to be afterwards absorbed by the roots of plants or decomposed by the air, so that in a short time, varying according to the activity of vegetation and of decomposition, no impurity whatever remains. If, then, the sewage which as soaked into the soil is not displaced, be as pure as ordinary spring water. If it be found tnat the depth of the active soil effecting this change is about half a yard, and that it contains about one-fifth of its weight of water, a quantity of sewage may sink into it equal to about 500 tons, or a depth of five inches, before the water previously in the soil within eighteen inches of the surface is all displaced; and if considerably less than than this proportion of sewage, say one or two inches in depth, be put on rich soil at once, though the drains from it will run freely, as they do after heavy rain, they will be carrying away the water previously in the soil, and not as is often supposed, that just poured upon it which may with good management be retained in the soil until it in its turn becomes completely purified; and the water passing from the deep drains of irrigated land not overmanured may be as pure as that from the shallow springs; of such land, all that is necessary for this i esult being that considerably less water be added to the soil at once than it previously contains, and that excessive manuring be avoided. During rapid vegetation an additional purification of the sewage matter takes place from actual contract with the growing plants on the surface. “Pall-mall Gazette.”

Fues. —An American paper says that house flies may be effectually destroyed by taking half a spoonful of powdered black pepper on a. teaspoonful of brown sugar and one teaspoonful of cream; mix them well together, and place the mixture in a room where the flies are troublesome.

THF WOOL MARKETS OF ENGLAND. (From the “ Australasian.") The present state of the wool markets of the old country has been long anticipated by those who have attended closely to the subject. The only wonder is that prices did not come down sooner. Various parts of the world in which the natural grasses were formerly allowed to run to waste are now being stocked up with sheep, and manufacturing power does not keep pace with the increase of wool, or we might say more correctly, that bad seasons have prevented the great mass of wearers from purchasing the increased quantity of fabrics which the manufacturers would have found means to turn out, if the demand for these had existed. A high price for bread materially reduces the amount of money available for clothing, and this is now the second year in which that has ruled in England, so home trade must necessarily he dull. Then the competition of foreign buyers has heretofore kept up prices for the raw material; but Germany, France, Holland, and Belgium are all alike suffering from a scarcity of breadstuffs, so that the wants of the manufacturers in those countries are fast diminishing, and their absence from London at the last sales was very noticeable. Had the last two harvests in the wealthiest countries of Europe been good, probably there would have been no very marked declinee even yet, but the failure of the demand has caused the cry of over-production to he raised. Doubtless there is over-production for the time; but had the purchasing powers of the communities not been so much curtailed, and for two years in succession, the consumption of woollen goods of the cheaper kind would have nearly kept pace with the increase in the supply of raw material lit for these. And from the last reports we learn that it is only in wools of a low class that there has been any material fall in price.

Thus we are told, after the November sales had proceeded for a fortnight, that prices had fallen 2d. per lb. below the September rates; but this was the average of the fall, for good Australian combing wool had only declined from id. to 1 d. per lb., and good' clothing wool from lid. to 2d., while a large proportion of the greasy and heavy wools had to be withdrawn. Such was the ease also at the last Liverpool sale of low wools from the Crimea, Turkey, Egypt, Spain,' and South America.

These ranged at from 4d. and scl per lb. up 1' 15;j-d., for the best merino fleece wool from the

River Plate, but although the attendance o home buyers was large, competition wn languid, and a large proportion of the wool catalogued had to be withdrawn. Englisl wool had declined id per lb. during the month and ordinary wools’ were declared to be lowc, than they had beeri for twenty years. Areliefto the market was looked for in this very depression, as it was supposed that, with money so cheap and wool so low, manufacturers would commence buying on speculation, The commencement of winter is not the time to look for a revival of trade, especially when such a scarcity of food has existed in the countries from which the buyers ousht to have conn. Then no increased outlet for manufacture*, goods was to be looked for in the Unitec States. Prices had fallen greatly here, am, sheepowners were complaining that they were getting most unsatisfactory rates for their woo! from their own manufacturers, notwithstanding the high duty on imported wool, so i: would not pay to send either raw material o, woollens in any quantity thitherward. Therefore we think that the home markets mus: remain dull and without improvement ah through the winter. Low prices will not induce men of business to speculate without some rational prospect of a speedy change, and the causes that have produced the present depression will not pass away so quickly. In fad. one of them, the so-called over-production, must incaease in intensity before there is am hope for relief, as the other, the purchasing power of the several communities, cannot be expected to return previous to the near approach or gathering in of a bounteous harvest again. And before that time there will have been many additions to the fast increasing stocks on hand.

Returns made up to the middle of November show that there had been then received 406,862 hales of Australian wool, as compared with 342,722 at a like period of the year before, or an increase of 64,775 bales. This was like y to be augmented before the termination of the year; and we must remember that it formed only a portion of the grand additional total to be received during the twelvemonth. The Cape furnished another 24,260 bales of an increase; and doubtless South America furnished a still greater additional quantity, which with the increased amount from the longer stocked countries of Europe, Asia, and Africa, would probably bring up the total to about 150,000 bales With a reduced consumption, this was quite calculated to give occasion for the cry of overproduction. And what will be said when the much heavier Australian clip of this season begins to pour in ? If we had an increase of 64,775 bales last season, we will be able to send at least 100,000 more this, so that the settlers may well begin to ask what prices they are likely to get for it. Victoria is given credit for have sent 168,548 bales of the total quantity from Australia, and New South Wales and Queensland get credit for only 98,856; but much of the wool shipped here was of course grown out of our territory. The number of bales received from the Cape in the same time was 117,250, and the rate of increase appears to have been rather higher than in these colonies.

The present decline in price ought to have the effect of stimulating our Victorian settlers to still further efforts for the improvement of their sheep, and in the getting up of their wool. Our best clips suffered little by the change of the markets, and our best show bales fetched such prices, even in a j'ear' of the greatest depression, as were never obtained for combing wool before. Australian combing wool generally fell at the last sales less than Id a pound, while the clothing wools fell 2d.; and we may note that now those from Port Phillip are always quoted above those from New South Wales, Thus the average price realised for scoured wool from the neighbouring colony in November is given at Is. 9d., and for fleece wool Is. 6d.; while the prices for Port Phillip wools were—for scoured Is. 10d., and for fleece Is Bd. From these averages it would appear that scoured wool has fallen much more in proportion than that washed cn the sheep's backs; and therein is another reason why the improved system of washing should be generally adopted. In fact, it is only by this that combing wool can be properly got up, and such alone should be the object with most of the settlers' in Victoria. It is in the short, low, clothing wools that the great increase is taken place, and if we are careful to maintain the lead we have already taken in the production of combing wool of a fine quality, we will suffer little from competition with other parts of the world. The sheep in these cannot be improved for years to come, if ever to our present standard; and the fabrics made of these long and fine wools are not worn bythe,class of people whose purchasing power is much affected by the price of bread. Therefore those of our settlers who have taken, or quickly followed, the lead in the improvement of their flocks and washing-places need not fear the consequences of over-pro-duction and slack markets; but the profits of careless managers will be sadly reduced. We fancy that the wool returns of the current year will most clearly prove, what too many of our settlers and moneyed men forget, that it is not from the number but the quality of the sheep that profit accrues.