Miscellaneous.

Waikato Times, Volume XXX, Issue 2465, 28 April 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

Miscellaneous.

The Scottish crofters who went to settle in Canada in 1834 have been remarkably successful. Experiments have been made in St. Petersburg with the object of slaughtering cattle by electricity, the results of which are said to have been highly satisfactory—death being in all cases instantaneous. The late Emperor of Germany said, on opening the Reichstag, last November : —" Agriculture is in a dangerous state of distress. Under the pressure of competition from countries which produce more cheaply, although we have enjoyed rich harvests, the prices of our agricultural produots, especially grain, have fallen so low that all profitable work on the part of Gcnnau agriculturalists seems endangered. The English papers state that foreign supplies under several heads have diminished, and are still diminishing. Since ISB3 the importation of cattle has been reduced year by year. Wheat growing in America has been pronounced " a ruinous game" by a very competent authority. " large numbers of American farmers have become bankrupt, and many more are on the verge of ruin." English wheat, at 651b. per bushel, was not worth, last October, so much by 3s. per cjr. as foreign wheat at 621b., becauso the latter absorbed more water when made into bread. Sparrows in Cheshire so sorely troubls the farmers that in one district 6d. per dozen are paid for all sparrows kitlnd. Yet the birds are so plentiful that their number pseem scarcely to havo diminished at all; though 7103 sparrows hiivo been killed within a very short period.