FACTS FOR FARMERS.

Waikato Times, 10 January 1874, Page 2

FACTS FOR FARMERS.

Young men on farms, if you will qualify yourselves by reading and Btudy, as well as by intelligent labour, there liei before you a world of u»efulness and honor, of which many of you have nerer dreamed. Keep away from the cities ; they will be the vortex into which, if you aro drawn, you will most lilely be drawn as into perdition. The more and more we see of city life, the more we are alarmed for the young man who quits the farm and rushes into tho great hot-bed» of iniquity. We know very well that there is a kind of loneliness in living isolated away out in the country. But it is a good place to study and practice virtue, and true know lodge. • In France the Minister of Agriculture is voted every year a respectable sum for his department ; as also, for the execution of public works more or less allied with rural interests — such as roads, railways, canals, &c. Some nine departments are seleoted every year, in whioh aro held, in spring or summer, art, industrial, and agricultural exhibitions, with prizes for local competitors, as well M all comers — so that in ten years each department has its subsidised little" World's Fair."" Then there are governmental farms, fitted up with laboratories, where science has but to cross the threshold to test its conclusions ; there are agricultural schools of various categories, where pupils graduate and receive diplomas. Further: there is offered to each department annually, a series of eight prizes of honor, varying from nn object of art, valued at 200 francs, along with a purse of 600 francs, up to a work of art, valued at 500 francs, along with a purse of 2000 francs (with medals and smaller purses for agents and farm bailiffs), for large and small proprietors, or co-proprie-tors, baring, in the opinion of the inspector, the best arranged farms, &c, in their department. The test of good farming is not a large crop on one or two acres, but a high general average. And this u the weak point in Australian farming. Our averages are extremely low. In a national point of view, this is rather an alarming fact ; but to all who are trying to farm better, and are willing to invest all the capital they can command in draining and other permanent improvements, it is encouraging rather than otherwise. If it was a fact that land would produce large crops with little labour or expense, we might well hesitato before investing largely in draining, getting out stones, and other improvements. But is it not true, *nd it is to be wished that every farmer understood it. There are millions of acrei of rich land. But it is not a fact that on almost every farm there are parts of the fields that are poor or wet, or weedy, or something, where tho crops hardly pay lor harvesting ? And that wli li» a few acres may produce large crops with little labour, the yield on the poor spots is so small that the loss on the latter makes a serious hole in tho profits of tho former ? At any rate, this is tho case on most farms, and ho far as my observation extends, nine-tenths of all our farming lands, west, north, and south, is in a similar condition. If there is a single hundred-nore farm that has never received anything more than common treatment, and on which every acre produces good crops, I would like to know whore it is. lam satisfied that there ace naturally few such farms in the world. And lam equally satisfied that there nre few farms that cauuot bd made such by a proper system of agriculture. But so long as a man thinks he can find a farm that does not need draining, or manuring, or nny particular effects to kill weeds, he will make but a sorry fiirmer. Such a man called on me the other day, and ho was actually angry because I was cutting so many ditches. Ho evidently thought that if my land needod draining, his land would also have to bo drained ; and he seemed to think that in EOne way I courted tlie necessity ! He btlieved in Nature, and thought tho good dame would be angry because I was not willing to wait until mid-summer for the land to dry. But tho truth is, that Nature will help us if we help ourselves ; but if we leave all the work to her alone, she will turn against us. — Jo-. Harris.

The French invention of making paper from the sheath of the hop-stalk after tho outer stalk has been remoTed is about to bo carried out in England, it i» laid, in an extensive way. A new and considerable source of profit will thus be opened for the hop-grower, while benefit will accrue to the manufacturer and the consumer, tho substance produced from the above-mentioned material being of great •uppleness and delicacy. Tho importance of the discovery to Kentish farmers, saya a local paper, cannot woll be exaggerated ; for, if the season should not prove favourable or should fail to produce first-rntn hops, tho paper-making will compensate for the deficiency in this respect. No doubt tlie cultivation of hops will be introduced in many districts vthere at present unknown, as the large amount of material the plant will supply for paper-making will alone ensure a good return for the labour bestow ed. The pric« of the article 11 very high at present.

CHAPTER XXVII.— LETHK. ' Abb you awake, Walter !' 1 Yes. Have I slept long ?r? r < Three hours. And a sound refreshing sleep, I bope ?' ' I feel much the better for it. lam getting on very well; am I not ?' 1 Very well indeed ; you will soon be quite yourself again. Do you feel equal to a short palaver now, or thall 1 we put it off until to-morrow ?' 1 0 no ; lam quite able to listen, if not to talk much. Is there any news? 1 Walter Clint asked this question carelessly, in a cuual kind of way, not by any means with the eagernew and intensity of one just returning to the active interests of life, of one from whom they had been shut cut through many long weeks of severo and exhausting suffering. It was not thus that Lawrence Daly had expected him to take up th« thread of life again ; it was with far other anticipations he had watched him gradually reviving to impressions of surrounding things, and resuming somewhat of his old familiar looks. The time had seemed intolerably long and wearisome to Daly, even when tbe first apprehension had subsided, and hope of Walter's recovery had taken its place. The I unshared burden of the two secrets — that of the death of Walter's father, and the extraordinary turn of fate which had made the disinherited son the owner of all his father's property ; and that of the hidden nugget — weighed heavily upon him. He longed exceedingly for the moment when, they might be freely discussed between himself and Walter ; when they should revert to the hopes whicli had preceded this time of trouble, and find them strengthened and perfected by the strange unexpected intelligence from the Firs. Lawrence had little or no apprehension about the effect which his father's death might produce upon Walter. There was such ample compensation in Florence's letter, and thechances that any better understanding should ever exist between the father and the son had been, by Walter's owu admission, bo infinitesimal, that there was little to fear. It would be a shock to Walter, and a transient grief ; but the good news -was lasting, and a full realisation of all he could hare hoped — a secure, happy, comfortable home, and a safe future for his young wife and himself ; an end of their trials and of their separation. He had almost persuaded himself that, even in his languid, half-unconscious state, Walter must perceive that something unusual wa» occupying his mind ; but it was not so. Walter was quiescent, incurious, and even now, when directly appealed to, only moderatelj intereited. There was no trace of the impatient, desperate eagernoss to get away, to begin that homeward journey rendered possible by the acquisition of the nugget, which Daly had been prepared to remonstrate with and control.