FARMERS’ COLUMN.

Waipukurau Press, Issue 303, 3 September 1908, Page 6

FARMERS’ COLUMN.

STOCK SALE DATES. Hastings—Tuesday, September Sth. Onga Onga—Thursday, September 10th. Waipukurau — Tuesday, September 15th. Kaikora North—Thursday, September 24th. The German Bay Dairy Company (Banks Peninsula) has paid its suppliers Is 04d for their past season’s butterfat, the highest price ever paid in the history of the company. A dividend of five per cent was also declared. O wing perhaps to the scarcity of feed, occasioned by the late spring’, writes the Winchester correspondent of the “ Lyttelton Times.” sheep are down in price from 2s to 2s fid a head compared ■with the prices of a month ago. A line of 400 wether hoggets was sold a month ago at 12s 6d and last' week at Geraldine they were again sold at 10s a head. Pigs have ■" been selling at high rates for all sorts, 13s a head being paid for pigs three weeks old. - A striking indication of the cost of working flax lands was given by Mr H. Greig, President of the Flaxmillers’ Association, at the meeting held at Palmerston. He stated that on a block of 800 acres of land at Tokomaru for the last two years he had paid out between £4 and £5 per acre in wages. For the coming season he expected to have to pay wages at the rate of £8 per acre. Flaxmillers, he stated, paid out at least seven or eight times as much in wages per acre as was paid out on lands used for mixed farming. At Longbeach, the noted Canterbury farm, the destruction of small birds by the use of poisoned grain has been most effective, but it has been done in a proper manner. The main _pQi.ut--of—th&-sy s tern —a system “"well-known in England—is the thorough baiting of places where the birds feed prior to laying the poison, and only freshly-pre-pared poisoned grain is used. The procedure is this. At the break of clay the haunts of the birds are visited, and clean grain is thrown about and only in such quantity that none will be left to the next day. This is repeated for, say, three mornings, by which time an enormous flock will be attracted. On the fourth mor- ! ning the poisoned grain is scattered. It has been found that there is little need to disguise the poison. The sparrow is a very greedy bird, and will take the grain so ravenously that they apparently do not detect any taste of the poison. After one poisoning it will be useless to again lay poison in the same place. Watch will have to be taken to locate fresh haunts of the birds, and the process be there repeated. Poisoning in this way cannot fail of success, but the indiscriminate scattering of poisoned grain is useless.

For some time past our trade in wool with Japan has been steadily growing (says the ‘’Sydney Stock and Station Journal”) and it is new gratifying to find that China is entering the competitive arena for Australian wool. Some orders have recently reached Sydney as a result of inquiries made through the proprietors of the “ Tung Wah Times ” in Sydney, which led to samples of wool being sent to China. The first shipment consisted of a line of Walgett wool, very nicely scoured by Messrs Wright and Bruce, Ltd., of the Lakeside Works, Botany, and it is hoped that this inaugural shipment will speedily lead to further business. The - Lakeside brand of scoured wool is much esteemed in Japan, and no doubt the shipment which is now going forward to China will create a favourable impression of our wool products in the latter country.

One of the runholders in the back country whose property is so situated as to be affected to the full by the snow and the subsequent cold, informs the Oamaru “ Mail ” that this season has been perhaps the worst that North has ever known. The snow itself fell heavily, but its effects have been aggravated by the constant freeze that supervened. For the past six weeks there has been

no appreciable thaw on the high country, and the surface grows more glassy with every succeeding day. Had a thaw set in within even three weeks of the fall, many of the imprisoned sheep might have been liberated alive, but there is no hope that any of the sheep still under the snow have survived. For those sheep that •were not buried the hard freeze came as a benefit, for it rendered the surface hard so that they might travel, but for those underneath it meant a slow death by cold. Many of the carcases now being recovered go to show that much of the stock was suffocated by the snow in its powdery stage, for their bodies are still well nourished. To the stock that yet survives farmers are experiencing much difficulty in supplying feed, but they thoroughly appreciate the Government’s liberality and initiative in railing fodder free for them. This comes as a great boon, for it has been found necessary in many cases to send a considerable distance for much of the feed.