THE WHEAT CROP OF GREAT BEITAIN AND IRELAND.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 5, Issue 1315, 5 April 1883, Page 3

THE WHEAT CROP OF GREAT BEITAIN AND IRELAND.

The London Times, in a review of the wheat crop of the United Kingdom for 1882, says that the average yield per acre during a period of seventeen years—lß66 to 1882—has been 2G§ bushels. For the first nine years of the series the average was 27.89 bushels and for the last eight years only 25\ bushels. The lowest acreage under wheat was reached last year, The average acreage for the 17 years noticed was 3,516,000 acres per annum. The average for the first nine years of tho period was 3,798,000 acres, and that for the last eight years 3,200,000 acres. These figures show, it will be perceived, a diminution during tho latter portion of the period of about 598,000 acres, or more than one-sixth of the former area. The ground under wheat in 1882 is estimated at about 3,164,000 acres-less than in 1878 but greater than in 1879,1880, and 1881. It is expected that the crop of 1882 will be about 11 per cent greater in quantity than that of 1881. The average growth available for consumption for the 17 years mentioned was 10,893,000 quarters or 86,664,000 bushels per annum. For the first nine years, the average was 12,278,000 quarters or 99,224,000 bushels. During the last eight years there was a considerable falling off, tho average being only 6,315,000 quarters, or 74,520,000 bushels per annum.

PIGS AT KOTORUA, Most of the whares (writes a correspondent of the Auckland Herald from the Hot Lakes) are surrounded by gardens, in which the peach tree and tobacco plant are conspicuous by their tropical luxuriance. The small cultivatsons are surrounded- by high wooden fences of ti-tree, not only as a proventivo against the incursions of fowls, but as a barrier against tho depredations of the innumerable pigs, which, when they are not grubbing about, aud doing all the mischief tbey can, or fraternising familiarly with the children, are taking siestas in tho overflowing waters of the tepid springs, with an air of tranquil enjoyment, which •would seom to indicate that they were utterly innocent of the fact that a large percentage of the human race had a predilection for boiled porksand beans. While writing of pigs, I may mention that when walking around thewhares, and noticing the various phases of Maori hot-spring life, I saw half a dozen members of the porcine tribe come quietly along with an easy, solf satisfied air, as if they had just gone through their morning ablutions in the wavm bubbling fountains, and were going to root round for steamed potatoes, boiled cabbies, and other delicacies. Suddenly a half naked Maori slunk out of his* whare with a long knife between his teeth, Quick as thought, and with the skill of a champion assassin, he-seized the foremost porker by the hind-leg. A prod from tho knife, and the crimson blood of the murdered animal mingled with a rill of boiling water which was running past in a hurry, as it were, to cool itself in the lake, A twist of the wist,:and tho pig was jerked into a .steaming pool, where the boiling .waters twirled and hissed as if in n. red-hot cauldron, Out again in an instant, and then : - they set to ■ work to scrapo. off ; the -'bristles; ; which came 'away in 'lakes, as if they had-been

simply stuck.oii,;l)y;; : nature ;\vith,the; aid of ;aiittle'gluei ; and:tfie'skiiroi'the porker; gleamed white: as snow benipath the sun. In tw'irninutes mowIHJEwiS 1 then-hewas'pliiced ovm', a; steara-hole,' : withacouple'-'of' sacks pver him, to be cooked for the evening meal..; From thev time'that J porker gaily walked 'se 'eaifch > until ithe end of that, terribleTprocesss, I think ! about 15! minutes' expired. When I was in\ Chicago i saw a machine where the "hogs" were put in at one end and came out sausages at the other, and in Texas they told me, amongst other big things, that they had a machine by which ;th« " hogs" when " dray-load 'in,", came out sausages too, but. then this Texas machine was so infinitely superior to that of Chicago that if you didn't think, the sausage quite up to the mark all you had to do was to put back your sausages into this wonderful apparatus, and forthwith they came out '■" hogs." But I know of no machines like those of OUnemutu, where a pig can be caught, cured, and cooked' within the space of 15 minutes, It requires one of Dame Nature's machines, in the shape of a red-hot boiling spring, to do that, -