Correspondence.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume X, Issue 3315, 21 September 1889, Page 2

Correspondence.

TO TKK EDITOR. Sir—Mr George Neale, of EkelaLuna, poundkoopor, etc etc, ecems to be a most illused personage. The cruel cold world seems to be entirely against him, and at his last appearance before a public tribunal ho appears to have been as unjustly dealt with as ever. Evon the newspaper reporters (or rather one of them) he says, does not confine himself to facts, regarding Mr Neato and his rambling statement Now happening to be in Court on tho day on which the case was hoard, I am of opinion that the report was both fair and correct. Liko your reporter I was also under the impression that the words' Deputy Official Assignee' were used by Mr Neale. Two or three gentlemen who were present on that auspicious occasion also ran away with the same idea, But of course we must all bo wrong. Mr Neale is like Cresar's wife, above suspicion, and nover never mado a mistake. Regarding Mr Neale's advice to the J,P's ho appears to have overlooked the 491 h clause of the Impounding Act of 1884, winch states that:—" When any poundkeeper is charged with neglecting to provide sustenanco for cattle impounded Ik burden of proving that proper sustenanco for such oattlo was provided shall bo upon such poundkeeper." Poundkeopers are generally aware of these things, but possibly Mr Neale thinks this clause was placed in the Act specially to do him another" injustice." Mr Neale promises new revelations in a day or two, and ho then will probably prove to an astonished and admiring world how wrong and wicked all the justices and constables, and prossmon arc. Trusting you will forgive my trespass on your space. I am &c, A Sympathiser.

Some Curious Customs.

The Washington correspondent of the Cleveland Leader writes:—While strolling 8 little way outside the city limits, near the head of Liighteenth street, I noticed two carriages filled with colored people entering an enclosure, I saw that it was a cemetery and followed. A stalwart negro took (roui ono of the carriages a small coffin, and with tho ceremony of a short, simple prayer, it was deposited in the earth, Just before leaving, a woman whom I judged to bo tho bereaved mother, laid upon tho mound two or three infant's toys. Looking about among tho largo number of graves of children, I observed this practice to be very general, Some were literally covered with playthings, There were nursing bottles, rattleboxes, tin horses and waggons, Noah's arks, sets of dishes, marbles, tops, china cups and saueers, slates, picture books iu endless number and variety, Many of them had apparently lain there for years, articles of a perishable nature having been almost destroyed by sun and storm, There were very few children's graves which had not something of this kind upon them. Upon enquiry 1 was told that this custom is almost universal among tho coloured people in the South, The sentiment that prompts it readily suggests itu-If; but it is is not quite so easy iu understand another thing which I' noticed. Upon fully half tho small graves, lying or standing, partly buried in the earth, were medicine bottles of every sizo and shape. Somo were nearly full, and all contained more or less of the medicines which had no doubt been used in the effort to vard off the visit of death. The usual number of these on each gravo was from one lo three, but on ona I counted

eight. The placing of these bottles is certainly n singular conceit. Just what tliey do it is not clear. J was impelled by curiosity to inquire of two or three Negroes about it; but they seemed no better able to explu'n

it than I was. One old woman, who was loitering about the cemetery, said, in answer to my question:—" I kan't tel! ye why, mister, but they allors/do it. When 1" was a' chile. I libed down in ole Virginny, an 1 it was jus' de Biim<ular. I d'no, but niebbe dey t'inka do medisun 'II he'p de . chil'en arter days buried; but I don't m, see-no good in it nohow. 1 " Keep Within Range.

Good farming demands the close and constant attention of the owner, or at least of some one who will as unselfishly look after the owner's interests, Many littlo tilings are suro to go wrong if the owner trusts . the management of everything to ) average hired help. Some people ' 4sjf attempt the business of farming when they have already so many other cares of greater importance that their success is' impossible. The man wbo'putshis hand to the plough, abovo all others, must not look back nor yot sideways. To do good work at farming mast demand one man's entire attention, and will be generally more successful if restricted to what one man can himself do. The temptation is stiong to grasp and hold raoro land than can bo thoroughly cultivated. While we had great quantities of virgin soil to bo brought under culture, the improvejW meats on it made the holding cap | adjoining new land profitable. That i ■; imo has gone by. Thero is now jenerally no advance in price of land ixcept by in some way increasing its toductiveness. This is expensive,

slow, mid requires the most careful management, It cannnot be done in the wholesale way so well as by each farmer taking no more land than ho can well manage. This is doubtless better for the future of our farming jag than would bo a different condition of farming affairs. The Loss of the Cuntennial. " Civis," in tho Otago Witness, declaims as follows about the lots of the B.e. Centennial in Sydney harbour :—" Competition is said to bo the life of trade. It is also sometimes also tho death of competitorfl. There is a strugglo lor existence; the stronger survives, tho weaker goes under. Tho Ccntenuial has gone nndor in a very literal sense, though the ovent was not, strictly a consequence of the Centennial's audacious competition with the Union Company. But-if the struggle had continued tho same result would have [ been reached in another way. By a merciful interposition of Fate—in tho form of a Newcastle collier—- ' agony has been shortened, and [ the Centennial enjoys peace with j honour at the bottom of Sydney I harbour. That is better than sinking in tho deep waters of a hopeless *w» , competition—hotter for her ownerß, «r , who, lot us hope, wcro dtcently insured, through not so well lor the travelling public. Thanks to tho Centennial and her sister ship tho Dupleix, the Union Company have beon carrying passengers to Sydney at fares which oxactly cover the cost of grease for the engines, ami before long they would have been paying . pooplo to go. It is a lucky thing j that 'the instrument of Providence ; which gave tho Centennial her I quietus was not a boat of the U.S.B. . fleet, It might have been, and, if ji 3 had, an illogical public would halo drawn only one inference, On pro- . sumption less strong juries have f convicted for minder, and Chetms, . after narrowly escaping tho gallows, 1 is held ia prison at this momoiit."

MIXED SEED. Farmers generally oarefully avoid sowing mixed seed wheat, but a loading seedsman in Paris contends that the eowing together of two distinct kinds of wheat gives almost in- , variably a better yield of grain tuanC oan be obtained from the same total '* quantity sown separately. In support of this practices it is remarked that each variety of wheat differs from all others, not only in its oxternal character, but to somo extent in the manner of its nourishment in |its special needs, and in the proportions of the materials it draws from *ho soil-slight differences, it is true, and yet sufficient to exerciso a distinct influonce upon the seed. It been truly observed in criticisirTbf too thin seeding, that the most powerful enemy the whoat plant has to competo with is the whoat plant itself, This is particularly the caso if tho plants which find themsolves in strife belong to tho same varioty, for the roots of each plant aro continuously in contact with those of adjacent plants, which at tho samo time, and at tho samo depth, aro seeking iu the soil precisely tho same food. If, however, two different varieties have been sown together, the competition will bo less severe for each. Another advantago of sowing mixod seed is Ihat it yields in gener^r - ' a grain of better appearance, and this is especially the caso when a wbito or yellow grain is sown with a red one, or a soft-grained variety with ono of which the grain is homy or polished.

Why Thresh the Oats P Experience, an American journal, says ;—Fow thiuking farmers Jjf so behind timo as not to know tlitfvalue of bright oat-straw for fodder. Nevertheless these men, good calculators generally, go on threshing tho oat crop and separating gram from straw and then feed both to the samo animals, is if thoy thus improved the feed 1 Is not tho work on the farm hard and enough without this useless labour ? The oustom is a relic of tho past, and surely tho day is not far distant when farmers will as soon think of hulling oats for feeding on the farm as of thorshing them. Oats for salo will doubtless stillbo threshed although I incline to the belief that many shoaf oats will he pressed likjj hay, having their heads all the middle of the hale. All stoe'k oat sheaf-oats with avidity, and thoy constitute nearly a perfect food, lkn through a fodder cutter and moistened they become, with the addition of a little meal, bran or cotton seed, a good ration for milch-cows, and the hardest-working team-horswjL keep sleek and fat on the diet. Whpliould not farmers everywhere place the crop immediately on hauling it from the field, in vermin-proof bays or barns, or, better still, in mouse-proof stacks (which are so easily arranged), there to remain till fed ? The timo usually consumed iu threshing oats for the farm stock could bo profitably used in vacations, freed from care and labour, and perhaps in visiting other farms, and learning from other farmers' methods,