MAURICEVILLE NOTES

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XII, Issue 3889, 18 August 1891, Page 2

MAURICEVILLE NOTES

[Br Rustic] Exceptionally fine weather, and as a necessary consequence at this time of the year, very seyere frosts prevails throughout the length and breadth of the Forty-mile Bnsh, so that while work of all kinds is going ahead right merrily owing to the favourable weather, stock of all kinds is reduced to the painful necessity of browsing on posts and rails. No grass is visible to the naked eye, excepting in specially favoured localities. The absolute necessity of making some adequate provision for stock against this particular season of the year from the surplus waste of the summer pasture, is being emphasised with terrible force on the owners of sheep and cattle at the! present time. Of course in about six weeks' time there will be an abundance of grass, and in the meantime there ia not likely to be much mortality amongst stock through actual starvation. But granting that, it must entail a terrible loss both of time and material to get the animals op in condition after being brought so low. Some properly scientific method of storing provender for winter use will baye to be adopted. The increasing seventy of each successive winter, as the country is being denuded of its na f ural shelter, will render such a step imperative on the part of stock owners. As to the best means ot effeoting this object, lam not an authority, my knowledge ot those things being somewhat vague. Perhaps, sir, you would be good enough to afford any information an your disposal as to the best methods of preparing ensilage, etc. lam eure any hints on this subject will be eagerly read by your subscribers, which means almost everyone so far as this district is concerned. It is rumoured here that an association from Canterbury has closed with the Government for about three thousand acres of the Baker block. I did not learn how many members the association included, but I understand they are for the most part men with families, having an aggregate of thirty six children. This will no doubt be a good thing for the district, but a great many people here are indignant at being shut out in this manner from the best land in the block. The Baker block contains nearly ten thousand acres of fairly good land though a bit rough in places. It has been surveyed, that is to say, the roads have been graded through it. The back lines baye been surveyed and the general scheme of allotment has been submitted to the Land Board and approved of. For some inscrutable reason, however, the placing of this land in the market has been postponed from month to month, although the season ' for bushfalling is passing rapidly away, which means that the settlement of the block will be thrown back a twelve month for no apparent reason in the world except pure 'wocdenheadednesß."