The Waikato Times. THURSDAY, JULY 31, 1879.

Waikato Times, Volume XIII, Issue 1108, 31 July 1879, Page 2

The Waikato Times.

THURSDAY, JULY 31, 1879.

Equal and exact justice to all men, _ Of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political. Here shall the Press the People's right maintain, Unawed by influence and tmbribed by gain.

The long-looked for denoument of tha political struggle at Wellington has come, and the Ministry have been worsted by a large majority. The division of Tuesday is, however, only the beginning of the struggle, a reverse, not a defeat. The Ministry have appealed to the Governor for a dissolution, and the prayer has been granted. A few weeks, and the Colony will be involved in the turmoil of a general election, when it will rest with the electors to endorse or reverse the judgment of the Assembly in the adverse verdict whioh it has just returned on the administration of the Government.

Mr Firth, at Matamata, has set tha farmers of Waikato an example which in their own interests and in that of the district they would do well to follow. Cultivating a large extent of land, Mr Firth has not forgotten that the staple crop oi every farm is wheat. Waikato forgets this, and so do farmers in New Zealand generally, and to their loss. We lately lost a good settler from Ngaruawahia solely from the fact that the preference was given to oats rather than to wheat. He had left a farm in Canterbury in charge of a partner. The main crop was oats, not wheat, and when it came to a sale of grain, oats would not realise where wheat would have done so, and our Ngaruawahia friend had to sell out here and go down to Canterbury, to see after his interests there. At home, the farmer's main stay is his wheat crop. Whatever may be the state of the markets, wheat is always a saleable commodity, and, as a crop, properly cultivated, as paying a one as is to be found in the rotation. Other exceptional crops may give a better money return, such as potatoes, but there is always a certain amount of risk about them, both as regards season and markets, while wheat seldom fails in the one case, and is never at a discount in the other. Oats give a heavier crop, bashell for bushell,«than wheat, and the straw is considered more valuable as a fodder, but the value of the one is not necessarily greater than that of the other, and in the latter comparison, that of the straw as fodder, there is not sncb a difference as to weigh seriously in the choice of a crop. A case in point has lately cnme under our notice in the ' Rural World,' an American paper of some standing as an agricultural authority. A Kentucky farmer there states: " In the fall of 1874,1 had about 40 head of mules, 35 head of cattle, 70 head of sheep, and other stock in proportion, to carry through the winter, and had but little hay. Stock fodder and corn could not be bought in the neighborhood. I became alarmed, thinking of the slim chance of keep, ing them from starving.through the winter. I could not- sell them, even at a great sacrifice. I remombered some wheat I had, and what I had been told of the great value of wheat' straw as a food, by one—when travelling in the East—who had been feeding wheat straw exclusively, as hay, for a number of years, and selling his grass hay. As Providence would have it, I had ricked the summer before, off about 100 acres of wheat, not to use as hay—for I had been erroneously taught that it was worthless—but because many hands around the thresher were idle, and I did not wish the straw thrown upon my clover. I at once determined to try the experiment. I built a rail pen round each straw rick, with a bavn shed attached, and a pond of water in each lot. I put about 25 head of mules in one lot, and about 35 head of cattle in the other. I built a pole rack all around each rick, so as just to let the head enter, and yet prevent them from tramping on the straw ; gave each rick a good drenching of strong salt water, all over and at the sides and ends, throwing it up under the straw the beat way I could. I bid them live or die, for it was the best I could do. To my groat surprise, they ate the straw gjraedily, and seemed to prefer it to grass hay, The 25 head of mules and 35 head of cattle were not out of that lot

during the winter, and lived upon that rick of wheat entirely, nil winter and spring, except seven bushels of corn, given all of them one very bad snowy day, and two small loads ot grass hay during 1 the winter, and one load of indifferent stock fodder, given all of

them every two or three weeks as the opportunity presented. They came out in the spring-, in about as good condition as mules and cattle that hud had a good supply of corn, grass-hay, stock fodder, Jkc., and well cared for duriug the same time.' Shortly after they were taken from the lot, I gold them to a drover at the same price as those that had been wintered upon grain, hay, &o. The drover said he could not discover any difference in flesh, appearance, &c. From that day to this, I have been a great advocate of wheat-straw hay, and always will be. I have my whsat straw cut as green as possible, so as not to shrivel the grain. This improves the quality of the flour. I have ricked or stacked the greenest stra, sufficients feed all of my stock abundantly through the winter, and although I have much Timothy, red top, or orchard grass and clover hay, and feed the wheat straw to my stock. I sell the grass hay, because it will bring more in the market than wheat straw, and not that it is more valuable for food than grass hay." Mr Firth, we learn, has just shipped from Matamata, by his new steamer, the Kotuku, some two hundred and fifty sacks of wheat. Waikato lands are quite as capable of growing wheat as any lands in the colony, nay, we haye good authority for stating that Waikate grown wheat is superior to any yet produced in New Zealand, approaching in quality so nearly to Adelaide wheat that the best judges have been deceived by it. In the old days, before the war, the lands about Rangiaobia were largely cultivated for wheat by the Maoris, and generally throughout the district the land is suitable for its growth. Experience would seem to point to the fact, that spring wheat suits the soil or the climate bettet than the autumn sown, and as there ia yet time enough for our settlers to make trial of this crop in the present season, we have been induced to call their attention to the matter. The reason, probably, is that the land being uudrained and our winters wet, the winter sewn wheat suffers where the spring sown escapes, and this iB a matter also which deserves consideration, for, as a rule, at home, where the winter is severe, the preference for a crop is always given to the winter wheat. However, with such experience as we have in the district, as to the relative merits of the two, there is quite sufficient data to show that a wheat crop, spring sown, is a paying one, and it behoves farmers to give more attention to this crop than they hitherto hare done. Oats, are really a scourging crop, and have had too great a preference, and without good reason. The low prices which they have realised however, and indeed, the impossibility in some cases of making a remunerative sale at all, in any quantity, must determine the farmer to depend- on some more reliable return. As in financial matters, specie is the only safe bottom on wh ch all other exchanges rest, so in 'farming crops, wheat io the only one on which we can with positive certainty depend when it comes to a question of a sure crop and a necessarily valuable money return.