Guide to Farming in New Zealand.

Joseph May

First published by G.T. Chapman in 1869

Digitised and made available online by the University of Auckland Libraries and Learning Services.

Epub © 2013 Early New Zealand Books Collection

ISBN 978-1-927288-93-1

[TITLE PAGES]

[Pages 1 and 2 not found]

MAY'S
GUIDE TO FARMING
IN
NEW ZEALAND

ARRANGED FOR THE
SEASONS AND CLIMATE
WITH A
COMPREHENSIVE CALENDAR
OF
THE OPERATIONS FOR EACH MONTH IN THE YEAR.

COMPILED BY
JOSEPH MAY , Epsom,
AUTHOR OF A "HANDY BOOK FOR NEW ZEALAND SHEEP FARMERS."

AUCKLAND:
G. T. CHAPMAN, BOOKSELLER AND STATIONER.
QUEEN STREET.

Printed by WILLIAM ATKIN, High-street, Auckland.

[PREFACE]

PREFACE.

IN the early days of the colony, when farming was conducted in a primitive fashion, 'helps' being scarce, each farmer was his own man servant and general manager, book farming was not then fashionable; but, in these modern 'go-ahead' times, the experience of the past is enquired after to enable the young settler to grasp the smooth handle of his difficulties.

At the urgent request of a number of friends, this Guide to Farming in New Zealand has been compiled; we have most carefully gone into the subject, and in every instance given the very best advice, so far as our knowledge and experience goes, and have now much pleasure in publishing it for the guidance of our fellow-colonists.

In describing the natural vegetation and soil, to assist our friends in selecting land, the language of one or two of the extracts given, may appear rather flowery, but as they are true, beautifully expressed, and to the purpose, we have not hesitated to adopt them.

To clear the land, whether from bush, scrub, or fern, we have given several ideas, for in this, as in house-building in the bush, we have not had much experience, and thus, in our anxiety to be clearly understood may have partly repeated some of them, but we believe that one of the plans slightly modified to suit different places and circumstances, will answer every purpose.

In the cultivation of the land, our own experience, extending over so many years in the old country and New Zealand, will be found, we believe, sufficient to direct both old and new settlers on this part of the subject.

In the rearing and general management of stock we have throughout been very particular, for this, in our opinion, is the interest-paying part of the farmer's invested capital; the cultivation of cereal crops in New Zealand are gradually giving place to permanent pastures and well-bred mixed stock.

It would have been less trouble to have written an original work on New Zealand farming than to write as we have done; giving, with our own, the experience of settlers in different parts of the colony, In speaking of New Zealand and its fine climate we forget that it has several climates: thus, about the Bay of Islands the orange and lemon ripen in the open air, and the maize crop seems quite at home; about Auckland, with a climate equally mild but more moist, the maize is not always a certain crop, while south of Auckland, except in a few choice spots, it can only be grown for green food; in the Middle Island, about Otago, the climate is very much like that of Scotland south of the Forth and Clyde; with such a difference, therefore, in the climate, a little repetition, and in some instances difference of opinion, was necessary in a work like the present, intended for the whole colony.

The second division of our Guide to Farming in New Zealand contains the practical part of the subject, the particular duties for each month; [the tables at page 49 give the climate of New Zealand compared with several places in the Northern Hemisphere, followed by a general weather table for the twelve months; then comes the routine work for the month, each headed with a table, showing the average mean pressure and temperature of the atmosphere, the days on which rain fell, the total rain-fall and the prevailing winds, all compiled from the General Government Statistics.

The other matters which follow will make the work more valuable as a general hand-book for settlers, as well as a practical guide to all engaged in agricultural or pastoral pursuits in New Zealand.

[INDEX]

INDEX.

THE Maori Seasons in New Zealand........2
The First Step, Introductory............9
Descriptive and Illustrative .........10
Practical and Demonstrative ........13
Bush Life and the Bush described........15
Cutting down and burning the bush ......18
Character of the Soil from its Vegetation......22
The Management of Clay Lands...........26
The Cultivation of Bush Land .............30
How to Build a House in the Bush........31
Clearing, draining and fencing for a Garden........37
A Personal Narrative.............42
Golden Rules for Farmers............47
The Climate of New Zealand...........49
Mean Temperature of Places in New Zealand and of Places in the Northern Hemisphere to compare with New Zealand..........49
General Weather Table for the twelve Months .............49

SECOND PART.

The Earth in its Natural State described.........51
How Trees beautify the Landscape..........53
Useful Hints to farmers.........54

JANUARY – Calendar of operations for the month .......55
Cereal crops; cultivation of wheat, barley, and oats; sowing new ground; maize crop; reaping, &c.; the cultivation of tobacco in Victoria described.

FEBRUARY – Calendar of operations for the month...........59
Potatoes may be taken up; plough cleared land; the process of paring and burning; Cape barley and oats for green food; prairie grass and tares for green food, &c.

MARCH – Calendar of operations for the month........61
Burning off bush; the process of vegetation; fern land, when to be sown with grass; lambing season; potato digging and cropping the land; pitting the potatoes; sow all winter crops; how to sow, and the quantity; lucerne as a valuable food, &c.

APRIL – Calendar of operations for the month..........65
Continue to sow for green food; plough land for wheat; lambing; sow various seeds; hoe and clear weeds; finish burning; clover and green food, &c.

MAY – Calendar of operations for the month...........67
Sowing wheat in bush and open land; thick and thin sowing described; thunder weather for wheat, the explanation; clear furrows, ditches and drains; keep milch cows and other cattle comfortable; saintfoin to cultivate, &c

JUNE – Calendar of operations for the month...........71
Winter work; have shelter for cattle; proper food for growing stock; golden rule for feeding; salt as a condiment; milch cows' food and milk; sow winter wheat; pigs and bacon; draining, &c.

JULY – Calendar of operations for the month ...........75
Indoor work; water courses; cows calving; sheep require attention; horses' dry food; cart manure; plant potatoes; sow oats, barley and winter wheat; clear bush land; manure described; good farming; guano; bone dust; gypsum; lime; lime and salt, &c.

AUGUST – Calendar of operations for the month..........81
Attend to horses, store cattle and cows; plant thorns and potatoes; soils and manure for the potato; cows calve; dairy management; milking cows; cattle ponds, &c.

SEPTEMBER – Calendar of operations for the month...............85
Main crop of potatoes; sow maize; for hay close the paddocks; oats for hay; grass crop; sow Swedes, rape, peas, vetches and grass; cheese and butter making; the yearning; cheese, Stilton, Chedder, Cheshire, Dunlop, and Gouda, described; how to make Dunlop and Cheshire cheese; tobacco culture, root crops, &c.

OCTOBER – Calendar of operations for the month .............95
Late potatoes; sow grass, oats and maize; cabbage; docks; hoe potatoes; sheep; cows; maize; the value of horses and oxen; the art of managing horses; wheat, &c.

NOVEMBER – Calendar of operations for the month.............99
Hoe potatoes; pulverise the soil; plough new land; sow sorgum and carrots; give calves milk, and mares, cows and pigs good food; cart scoria; under-draining; parsnips; crops and manure, &c.

DECEMBER – Calendar of operations for the month...............103
Haymaking; oaten hay; sow oats, grass, clover and lucerne; pasture lands; broken winded horses; maize; mangolds; cabbages; sugar grass; fern; the art of grazing, &c.

How to grow Fruit Trees on Grass Lands.....109
Seeds required to sow Garden Plots..........111
Seeds required to sow an Imperial Acre .......112
Seeds required for a Garden of One Acre.......112
Dimensions of a Statute Acre in Yards........113
Number of Plants, at given distances, in a Square Perch............113
Yards, Feet and Inches, in links of the Imperial Chain...............114
Number of Plants contained in an Acre of Land........................114
Table for Planting and Sowing from 1 to 30 feet apart...............115
Weight of Produce per Acre from 1 to 14 lbs. per Square Yard.......116
Weight per Acre of potatoes, turnips, carrots, &c, by weighing 20........116
The Value of a Garden and One Hundred Years ago..................117
The Moon's Influence..........................118
Chronology of Rural Affairs from the Creation to the present time..........120

[First Part]

MAY'S

GUIDE TO FARMING

IN

NEW ZEALAND.

"When Adam delved and Eve span
"Where was then the gentleman!
"Upstart a churl and gathered good,
"And thence did spring our gentle blood!"

THE FIRST STEP.

WHAT strange sensations one feels on leaving home, the home of our forefathers and of our young humanity – on taking the last look at the old familiar house with its surroundings – nature and art. What are our thoughts when bidding a long farewell to the many happy associations, and when we get on board that ship which is to take us away with our household gods to a new and distant country, how often do we ask ourselves – shall we ever again see the old land, the scenes of childhood, youth and manhood? We may hope and feel a wish to return, but the new world is so bright and fresh and ever new, so much to do and so much to see that from the moment of parting with the old home till we take possession of the new one it is one continuous dream – and even then the dream is not dispelled, as day by day we mark progress in some new work in the new home. With the beautiful climate, the spring, the summer, the autumn and the winter weather so blended into one another, is so different to the climate of Europe – the bright clear sky, the fine fresh breezes, and

the strange evergreen foliage, talk about poetry, why the first start in colonial life is full of it – and every writer who has visited our adopted home tries to sound its praises higher and higher. David Pugsley, an Englishman, author of "The Rise and Progress of Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand," says, New Zealand will no doubt some day become an important and populous country if not a great nation, she possesses all the elements to warrant such an opinion and to justify such a belief – with a fine if not the finest climate in the world, the Colony has every corresponding advantage, the capabilities of the land are so great and the produce therefrom so astounding, that a stranger and an eye-witness is almost afraid to record what to distant landowners will naturally appear more Like fiction than fact (page 233), and so we find every writer carried away with the abundance of natural wealth, the prodigal riches of this country, and the promise it gives – in spite of blundering government – of taking a high stand among the nations of the earth.

DESCRIPTIVE AND ILLUSTRATIVE.

As we intend to write a practical handbook on the management of bush and fern land, selecting, clearing, fencing and cultivating, house building, managing stock and general farm work, we may leave the poetical part out and tell our story in plain prose. But as we shall avail ourselves of many useful hints collected from local publications to illustrate and enforce our remarks, we wish to assure our friends that in no instance will we do this without being aware who the writer is, so that we may judge whether the remarks we quote are derived from

theory or practice. To begin then with the Colony, – the celebrated Dr. Hochstetter bursts out in the following strain of eloquence, – "On looking over the numerous Colonies of great and glorious Albion: that vigorous parent tree, the branches and saplings of which are taking root and thriving in all parts of the world: and comparing them with New Zealand it is at once evident that of all the colonial provinces of the British crown New Zealand bears the most resemblance to the mother country by virtue of its insular position, its climate, its soil, and the whole form and structure of the country. It is an empire of islands, a double island which, thanks to the power of steam that now-a-days shortens every distance, lies towards the neighbouring Australian Continent like Great Britain towards Europe. Blessed with a genial oceanic climate, so admirably suited to the Anglo-Saxon race, with a fertile soil well watered and splendidly adapted to Agriculture and Farming, with a manifold coastline suited perfectly to the notions and habits of the first maritime nation of the world, it is the country without dangerous animals, without poisonous plants, but rich in mineral treasures, a country where horses, cattle and sheep thrive, where fruit, grain and potatoes grow most abundantly, a country adorned with all the charms and beauties of grand natural scenery, a country which would easily support a population of twelve millions, which promises the bold and persevering emigrant a lucrative and brilliant future, such a country appears indeed destined before all others to become the mother of civilized nations." It is indeed pleasant to contemplate such a picture of the land of our adoption, and to believe that he speaks only the truth. But if our leading men in their politics would look more to the future in their legislation, if they would try to develop our resources instead of grinding down the working man with taxes and obstructions, if they would let

the labourer go free and tax wealth and real property, encourage agriculture and manufactures, assist in developing the natural wealth of the country, instead of taxing the very first discovery of it. When will the day come when we can say with a recent visitor, New Zealand is essentially the poor man's country, although there are but few poor in it. It is a country to which those of the working classes in England who have the means or intend to emigrate should direct their steps – for it is a Colony in which nine out of every ten who land therein rise in the course of a few years from poverty to affluence, or from a poor to a good position, with industry and sobriety the artizan or labourer soon becomes his own master – landowner or farmer – and the majority of the most wealthy men in the Colony are those who landed a few years since without any capital beyond that which is most valuable in New Zealand – individual labour. This is certainly very encouraging in theory, but in practice how do we find it? Just hear what an old settler says of his experience, coming from an old country – where from the division of labour one is almost ministered to by unseen hands – into a new country where he must rely on himself for everything, is a hard lesson to learn, but, he says, the difficulties though many are not insurmountable. Industry, steadiness, perseverance and patience will conquer all – for by degrees difficulties are overcome and the new life becomes pleasant, as all things are enjoyed with a zest hitherto unknown. This is the country for a hard working man with a large family who finds it difficult to live at home, for if his means are unequal to settling at once with his whole family on his land, his children can find employment and be able to assist him during the first year of heaviest outlay and least production. The land being his own is the great advantage, and one that will some day draw an active and industrious population to this country.

There is a prospect of independence not so distant but a man may reap the benefit himself – at all events his children will realize it – and he can have the comfort of knowing that his family will be more independent and better provided for than he could have dreamt of at home. This writer says that the climate of the Province of Auckland is as much superior to the South of England as that of the South of England is to the North of Scotland. The forest is evergreen, no frost to interfere with vegetation, and the heat of summer is never so great as to make out-door work disagreeable.

PRACTICAL AND DEMONSTRATIVE.

A working Colonist of the Province of Auckland, who resided for several years in Australia, says – after six years practical experience here, I am of opinion that New Zealand is to be preferred to Australia for immigrants of limited means, especially if they are industrious and intend to follow agricultural pursuits. The same writer advising newly arrived settlers goes on to say that, having arrived at Auckland (the same remark will apply to any other Province) and taken a temporary residence for the family, look round for a few days to get all the information you can – do not be in too great a hurry in purchasing land – and if possible, if you intend to cultivate, have it half and half bush and fern, not too swampy nor too mountainous – and in the absence of a navigable river or a creek see to the facility of communication to the market for your produce, good land for cereal crops will be almost of no value without it, and even land for grazing will be equally bad – thus many things impossible to explain on paper will

require to be carefully considered before selecting land for permanent settlement. Another writer tells us that when out searching for land to settle on, he walked over many miles, seeing nothing but bush land and fern land, but no roads, no cattle and almost no living thing – giving the first true idea of what waste lands really meant – till we came to a muddy creek which ran into a tidal river, and up which the tide flowed, we gathered branches to throw on the mud to enable us to cross, some of our companions got off the branches and sank up to the armpits in the mud, fortunately at this depth the bottom was hard, and they soon struggled out, while the more lucky ones enjoyed a hearty laugh at their mishap. We condemned this land, says the same writer, not because of inferior quality, for a great portion of it was good, but from the difficulty of approach. This land has since been occupied, and is now within a day's journey of Auckland, on horseback, and has a weekly post – the muddy creek is bridged and a road opened over almost the line we walked. This gentleman advises settlers against being too easily frightened about bad roads, for if there is a line of country over which a road can be made, there is no doubt the road will be opened as settlers increase. Referring to the district where he selected his land he says, two and a half years ago this district was in a state of nature, except for the surveyors' marks and a maori footpath here and there, it might have been untrodden by men – now there is progressive improvement, bush and fern giving place to grass crops and orchards – a palpable proof how slowly and gradually the fruits of our labour become visible – but once visible, how marked the progress.

BUSH LIFE AND THE BUSH DESCRIBED.

Dr. Hochstetter, in his last work on New Zealand, which he dedicated to the Queen, gives some fine sketches of country life and forest scenery, and as the work is too expensive for the general book-buyer, we will copy a very felicitous description of colonial bush life, and of New Zealand vegetation. "There are the first settlers pioneering for generations to come, a small log-house is standing in the midst of the dusky bush, it is the scanty shelter of a family that has come many a thousand mile far over the deep to found a new homestead in the new country – the father is in the bush, and trunk after trunk is falling prostrate before the powerful strokes of the woodman's axe, the mother at home is preparing a frugal meal, children are playing in front of the sylvan hut radiant with health, and their glowing cheeks flushed with the fresh breeze, a faithful dog and a few chickens and pigs are their playmates. From year to year improvements are going on, the bush disappears, crop succeeds crop, the log-house is removed, and a pleasant commodious country-house surrounded with blooming gardens and waving fields occupies its place, herds of well fed cattle are grazing in the pastures, horses are plunging and skipping in the meadows – friends have settled in the neighbourhood, smooth lanes and neat paths are winding between hedges and through the woods from farm to farm, and close by the wayside stands the church, and where of late there stood but a scanty isolated hut, there is a village, &c. Thus in the evening of a busy life will the old settler enjoy the fruits of his labour, and his children by his example and the blessing of the Giver of all Good will take his place in the battle of life, and with, rapid strides take possession of the land."

We have then a description of New Zealand Vegetation. "The traveller from whatever country on arriving in New Zealand finds himself surrounded by a vegetation that is almost entirely new to him, what from afar appears by the side of the immense tracts of forest covering hill and dale to be open land or meadows, is on closer observation found to consist of bushes, and where grasses, weeds and chequered flowerage were expected, only uniform ferns and bushes with some scanty white blossoms are to be seen. Rarahue pteris esculenta, the roots of which formerly yielded the chief aliment to the natives, covers nearly all the open land, only Manuka and Rawiri leptospermum or Kumaharau pomaderris and Koromiko veronica are intermixed with pteris – here and there in moist places arises isolated the "Cabbage-tree" Ti cordyline australis, and quite modest – like the recluse hidden among the bushes – blooms the tender blue Rimuroa whalenbergia gracilis, the only bell-flower of New Zealand, and the Tupapa lagenophora forsteri taking the place of our little daisies. On entering the "bush" – as the forest is called – ferns principally meet the eye, magnificent tree-ferns from thirty to forty feet high, their trunks as if coated with scales, and with neatly shaped crowns, dicksonia and cyathea, which cover with luxuriant growth the trunks of the forest trees – the singular form of the Kidney fern trichomanes reniforme, the edges of the leaves bordered with seed-pods – ferns between the branches and twigs of the trees, ferns on the ground asplenum bulbiferum, tender species of goniopteris and leptoteris, in short all sorts and varieties of ferns – but in the woods nothing but shrubs and trees. A few trees grow gregarious, and are prominent in the landscape by their appearing either in closed forests or as separate clumps and groves, these are the Kauri dammara australis, the Kahikatea podocarpus dacrydioides, and the Tawai (black birch) fagus fusca. The

New Zealand trees grow mostly so intermixed that more than a dozen varieties may be found on the same acre, and among the chief ornaments of the mixed forest are the various species of pines. Totara podocarpus totara and Matai podocarpus spicata are large and beautiful trees found in every forest. Rimu dacrydium cupressinum is distinguished by hanging leaves and branches, Tanekaha phyllocladus trichomanoides by its parsley-shaped leaves – alongside of them towers the poplar-shaped Rewarewa knightia excelsa – the Hinau elaeocarpus hinau, the fruit of which is the favorite food of the parrots, and the bark of which is used by the natives for dyeing purposes – the Kowai edwardsia microphylla also, with its magnificent yellow papilionaceous blossoms, grows in many districts to a considerable size. Among the largest forest trees, the Rata metrosideros robusta, the trunk of which frequently measuring forty feet in circumference, is always covered with all sorts of parasitical plants, and the crown of which bears bunches of scarlet blossoms – also the Kahikatoa leptospermum, Tawa laurus, Pukatea laurelia, Karaka corinocarpus, and a great many others. The underwood is composed of bushes and shrubs of the most different kinds, especially species of panax and aralia, above which the slender Nikau palm areca sapida, the sole representative of its genus upon New Zealand, rears its sap-green crown in picturesque majesty – and while this palm and the fern trees remind us by their forms of tropical forests, the New Zealand forest owes its tropical luxuriance to the countless parasitical weeds, ferns, to the Pandaneae and Orchideae covering trunks and branches, and to the creepers which cover the ground as with a natural netting, which coil round every stem, run up every limb, glide from head to head, and entwine the topmost branches of a dozen trees, thus the forests become impenetrable thickets which sun and air can scarce penetrate.

In the interior of the bush it is gloomy, everything is silent as the grave, neither gay blossoms nor gaudy butterflies, and few birds greet the eye or relieve the melancholy monotony of the scenery, all animal life seems extinct, and however much the curious traveller may have yearned after sylvan beauty, it is with feelings of delight that after days of tedious plodding through the dreary solitude of those gloomy and desolate woods he hails once more the cheering daylight of the open landscape."

CUTTING DOWN AND BURNING THE BUSH.

It is curious how anxious settlers feel in selecting land for first settlement. Where money is scarce, fern land or at least open land is far better than heavy bush land, but where the settler has a little ready capital, bush land and no other is worth having, so before we offer our opinion let our friend speak, and mark well what he says – "We had a dread of commencing to fall bush, anticipating much difficulty, and in our first attempt we only cut down the larger trees, which we expected would at the end of summer burn off, leaving the land pretty clear – we found our mistake, the fire would not run, and the ground was left covered by a half-charred tangled mass of underwood, branches and trunks of the larger trees. We were very-careful afterwards to clear off all the undergrowth first, then the scrubby bush, then smaller trees, falling the larger ones last, and carefully lopping off their branches, leaving the whole as level as possible. In due time we fired it, and had the satisfaction of having a clean burn-off." Too much weight cannot by any possibility be attached to the proper clearing of the land. The requisite tools to begin

with are an American axe and a short-handled bill-hook, such as is used by surveyors. This latter instrument is used to clear away the dense undergrowth which prevents the larger plants from being easily got at with the axe, while still standing, and also from burning after they are felled. The best time for falling the bush is in the autumn and winter, for not only is the sap down, but the fallen wood is soaked with water during the winter and spring, and it becomes drier for early autumn burning. The trees should all be fallen in one direction, so that the heads equally cover the ground, and as they fall, the branches lopped off and the trunks cut in such lengths as two men with levers can move. The underwood must be carefully cut, not simply crushed down by the larger trees, – if so, when the fire has passed over the ground, these smaller saplings still being green would remain unburnt, and cause a vast amount of trouble and delay. In March, before the weather breaks up, a fire is run over the ground, the larger logs are then rolled into twos and threes to burn one another out, and the smaller pieces which may have remained unburnt by the running fire are carried to these logs to be consumed and assist in burning them. If it be intended to sow the land at once in grass, the sooner it is sown after the cooling of the ashes the better – if with wheat, it may remain until the end of April or beginning of May, but should be sown early, as the crop will have a better chance of mastering any weeds which may be natural to the soil, and the growth of either grass or young wheat will assist in preventing the ashes from being washed off the surface by the winter's rain. It is useless to attempt to preserve single trees, for although not actually burnt, they will if only scorched by the running fire be destroyed. Where it is desired to save any particular tree or clump, and some ought to be

preserved both for the sake of appearance and shelter, a patch of at least half au acre must be left uncut, the outer trees will be scorched and will die, and can afterwards be removed for firewood as they are wanted, but the inner ones will be preserved uninjured. A good axeman can fall an acre of bush of average thickness in six days, but the raw emigrant from home unused to the work must not calculate on doing more than the half; trees of four feet diameter and over are usually left uncut. The lopping, logging and burning will consume as long a time. According then to the amount of labour at his command must the new beginner lay out his plans. The first year building his house, transporting his provisions and goods, and the formation of a garden will disarrange the system on which his after operations should be based. It should, when these are provided for, be his endeavour to clear just so much ground as he can fence and sow with wheat and grass every year – but at any rate, whatever it be, he may reckon on so many acres of wheat and the same quantity of land brought into cultivation as pasture, until the whole farm is thus gradually brought into grass. The stumps, however some may consider them unsightly, take up but little room, the labour of removing them would be altogether too costly. Where however the bush is moderately light, where the trees are not more than from six to nine inches in diameter, they should be cut down at a height of about four feet from the ground, and may in the course of four or five years, with the aid of a block and tackle and a pair of horses, be readily torn out and the ground rendered fit for the plough – by leaving the stumps some height from the ground a great advantage is given in the increased leverage.

The formation of a garden and orchard should be commenced during the first few months. This will be a

work of some little trouble, as the tree-roots which spread like a network over the surface of the ground will have to be chopped out with an adze as the ground is broken up, but this will be performed with a good will, for the certainty of obtaining a fair crop of all kinds of vegetables the very first season will serve to stimulate his exertions. A sufficient quantity of potatoes to serve the wants of his family and provide seed for the next year should be planted, pumpkins, cabbages, in fact all vegetables will thrive most luxuriantly, and fruit trees from a competent gardener – not the worthless suckers so many beginners obtain gratis from their more settled neighbours – may be planted during the winter at intervals of from twenty to thirty feet from one another. Now supposing the settler to take up his ground in December, to spend the first month in building a hut and transporting the most necessary of his household goods to his location, another month in falling, lopping and logging an acre of forest around his house for a garden to be planted in September with potatoes and vegetables, and in February a second acre to be burned as late in April as the weather will permit, and to be sown with wheat in May – he would be able within twelve months from his first settlement to raise as many potatoes and vegetables as he will require for himself and family, and fifteen or twenty, in all probability perhaps thirty bushels of wheat in addition, which with a steel mill he can himself convert into flour. These two acres will, from the short time the timber will have been fallen, give more than ordinary trouble in burning, but to ensure a good crop of wheat it will be advisable to chip in the seed.

During the winter and spring he will have time to fall a considerably larger piece of ground for the next autumn's burning and sowing, and of course his returns will be proportionally increased. The acre on which the first crop

of wheat was grown having been necessarily cleared of surface roots, to allow him to chip in the wheat, he will find, it to his interest to break up thoroughly with the hoe for potatoes in the second year, since the ground cleared the first winter and spring will produce in the second year wheat for consumption and sale too. This, as in every succeeding paddock, he will sow in May with wheat at the rate of one and a half or two bushels per acre, sown broadcast on the ashes, using no means whatever to cover the seed, and among the young wheat in early spring he will sow at the rate of two bushels of mixed grass seeds and eight pounds of white clover to the acre. Thus within two years he will have a grass paddock for his cows, which up to this time he will have run upon the unenclosed bush around him, where they would find excellent feed. No industrious man with health and strength, if provided with the means of maintaining himself and family during the first twelve months and partially during the next six, need hesitate to enter upon the occupation of a bush allotment of average quality and situation – but he must work, not spend his time on the road between Auckland and the bush, or lose too much time in frightening and shooting pigeons.

CHARACTER OF THE SOIL FROM ITS VEGETATION.

The best test of the character of the soil is its indigenous vegetation – this is a very important part of the settler's first duties and is what will affect all his after Colonial life – we have pleasure therefore in giving the experience of an intelligent settler from a local paper, we have here hints as to the comparative strength, quality and value of trees, for it has been ascertained that our native trees are

equal, some of them even superior, to any timbers of the Australian Colonies. The iron bark of Australia was found after repeated experiments to be the stiffest and strongest of Colonial timbers, and the Australian cedars proved the best for house work. In New Zealand there is no wood corresponding to the Australian cedar – but some of the Auckland woods admit of a polish, and form variegated cabinet work of such beauty, that they will vie with similar articles in any part of the globe. They are splendid furniture woods, and furniture of cabinet and household manufacture is to be met with in Auckland of unsurpassed workmanship and elegance, made by Auckland artisans. The puriri is said to thrive in the same quarter as the dammara or kauri – it sometimes is called iron-wood or New Zealand teak. Mairi belongs more particularly to Southland, and bears some analogy to English box, being heavy and hard. Rimu is a large pine, takes fine polish, and is harder than kauri. Imitations of ebony might be made of rimu. The totara grows in small forests of the South, and the rata or boa constrictor of Colonial trees, at first unable to support itself, winds around stouter trees, kills them is its embraces, and becomes a large tree, having a tough, timber easily worked. The pitch pine, tanekaha, and the mai or black pine, have their uses, and the bark of rimu is certainly valuable for tanning. These woods are believed indicative of the soils they grow on. Kauri and puriri indicate poor land. Rimu promises better, growing abundantly about New Plymouth. White pine (kahikatea)loves a moist situation and low swampy grounds. Mai, karaka and rimu prefer dry soils and undulating country. Few of these grow by themselves in forests, except the kauri, but are found intermixed in great variety, many loaded with climbers, or almost choked with underwood and parasitical plants.

If New Zealand claims one hundred and twenty species of indigenous trees and shrubs, a considerable portion is entitled to the distinction of timber woods. Many of the shrubs are pretty, but as yet proper attention seems not to have been devoted whereby with care and culture the better qualities might be improved. Some of the ferns are elegant, as also the New Zealand fuchsia, sometimes thirty feet high. With flowers and fruits nature behaved not bountifully. The poroporo is nothing to speak of as a fruit, nor fern-roots as esculents; kiekie might be eaten by Russian sailors on short allowance of rations. In its pomona, flora and fauna New Zealand is very poor, and the fish in its seas or bays, creeks or rivers, are all inferior, far inferior in quality to the fish on the coasts or in the rivers of Great Britain and Ireland. The phormium tenax is really the most valuable native shrubby product. In Victoria the enterprising in that Colony are growing it and manufacturing it, and advertise for off-sets to plant for culture. No crop could be grown with less trouble. When once planted out in rows, wide enough between to be horse-hoed, the main labour is over, and the first plants will last many years. Perhaps a dye could be extracted from hinau, and a powerful astringent in addition, but chemistry has scarcely shown its learned and experimental face on these shores. It is high time its practitioners took up their residence here. Some of the barks are said to have as much as ten per cent of tannin. If so, they ought to be highly esteemed for many purposes, and prepared in a scientific manner. The discovery that oil of blue Australian gum-trees is the best solvent ever found for kauri gum ought to make that purest of gums more valuable than ever. Formerly the process was expensive, mastic gum was used which cost in England 16s. per lb. The blue gum oil converts kauri gum at 3d. per lb. into

a translucent varnish for maps, paintings &c, and if this varnish stands the test of time, it will supersede mastic.

Many persons fancy that new land has only to be turned up and planted right off, and it is only by carefully considering the character of its vegetation past or present, or its chemical constituents, that this fallacy can be combated – it may be that certain alluvial or mixed bush lands, rich in decayed vegetable matter, can be so cultivated successfully, but one peculiarity with scarcely an exception is common to the open lands of the Colony, we allude to the necessity of fallowing or not cropping the land until the second year after breaking it up, for instance, if broken up in May, June, or through the winter, it should not be sown with wheat until the following May or June, or with potatoes or other spring crop until the next spring. This process is called by the settlers "sweetening" – a term which implies some existing latent quality in the soil itself, deleterious to vegetation, such for example as the formation of carbonic acid gas in a high degree, caused by the presence of iron in the soil – and the natural and simple remedy for this is the course pursued, turning up the soil to the action of the sun and the oxigen contained in the atmosphere. Quicklime has the same and a still more instantaneous effect – hence the results which follow the application of alkali to the soil, such as soda, soap-suds, and the potash contained in the remains of many kinds of wood when burned – these, by acting on the acidity of the soil, release the various salts required for the food of plants from a fixed to a soluble state, the only form in which they can be taken up and absorbed. Another and a practical solution to this phenomenon is the theory that from the time when the present open lands were covered with forests, a succession of crops – whether fern, flax, small manuka, or other scrub – have been raised upon the ground,

reaped by the action of fire, and carried in the form of ashes into the natural water channels by the washing of the rains. Thus an uninterrupted system of exhaustive cropping has been carried on, with only the partial return to the soil of the roots of each course as they have decayed in the ground. Another general rule we would allude to is that the southern or shaded aspect of every main ridge appears to possess a soil superior to that on the opposite side – this rule we have been told is observable in other countries besides New Zealand, though of course more remarkable here, where the country is in a state of nature, than in one where the variations of quality have been equalised by the cultivation of centuries.

THE MANAGEMENT OF CLAY LANDS.

Clay soils are certainly heavy and expensive to work, but they possess this advantage over soils of a lighter texture, that without manure the latter soon get exhausted, while the clay soils improve year after year – and, with the exception of the white, all other clays are productive. The settler before he makes his purchase should enquire carefully into the nature of the soil – then weigh well the permanent advantages to be derived from clay soils, that they keep the manure nearer to the roots of the plants, are less liable to be affected by severe drought, are less easily exhausted – for the deeper you go in the clay in New Zealand the richer it seems to be – even on soils of strong black loam, where the wheat crop averaged in the third year twenty-three bushels without manure, we have seen the wheat higher and ranker above the rest, along the whole line of drains where the yellow clay thrown from the under-drains had been filled back again. Wheat, beans, clover, and grass

succeed well on these soils – against them must be taken into account the expense of drainage, the greater power required to till them, and the impracticability of working them in all weathers. On the other hand, the sandy soil is peculiarly adapted for the growth of potatoes, barley, turnips, peas, grass, and even clover for the first six or eight years, is easily worked, and at times when from excessive moisture it would be better for the farmer to sit over his fire than to attempt to cultivate his clay lands – again, they are subject, particularly if left sown, to loss of crop through drought, and the fertilising qualities of the manure applied to the surface sink through a porous soil below the depth to which the roots descend. But there is an intermediate soil – the flax land, of New Zealand – which itself not a clay, but a retentive loam upon a clay subsoil, combines the advantages of the two former descriptions, with the defects of either modified, as it is more or less argillaceous or silicious. This description of land is generally found in gentle slopes or ridges covered with heavy flax more or less mixed with small manuka and rushes, koromiko, and weeds. The surface of this soil at any rate will be indented with various shaped holes of all depths from six to thirty inches – caused, it is supposed, by the burning into the soil of the roots of the previous crop of flax when destroyed by fire. Another is a loam of a lighter texture upon a clay bottom, the natural growth on which is the tupaki and koromiko, with only occasional plants of flax. There is also the shell ground, or a black loam mixed throughout with small shells – this too, when a clay loam and resting upon a clay subsoil, is a valuable kind. But in a sandy loam the presence of shells, unless in a very small proportion, is not desirable. With respect to color in the choice of a soil there has always been a prejudice in favour of a black one, but the reader will bear in mind that, in New

Zealand at least, he will meet with black, rich-looking, friable soil of a character by no means commensurate with its appearance – the depth of this soil varies from two to five feet, requires thorough draining and the application of lime, and is admirably adapted for laying down in pasture and for the growth of potatoes, after but not before the application of manure – but it is not suited for the cultivation of cereals, though of course by the introduction of turnips and sheep such soils will eventually become valuable for all purposes, except the growth of wheat. For the present it is enough to say that the crop of the third year on such soil will not compare favourably with the crop of even the first year on clays, or the three intermediate soils mentioned above. It would appear from the timber which is found underlying such soil, that kauri has been the prevailing growth at some antecedent period. Some descriptions of black soil contain more humus than others, but any general superiority in them will rest, we believe, upon the fact that black absorbs heat whereas white reflects it. This rule will also hold good in like ratio with respect to the intermediate colors, as they vary from one extreme to the other. But there are some descriptions of soil, and to some considerable extent, which are to all practical present use, except as cattle runs, utterly valueless. It would seem that nearly the whole of the open lands of this Province have been at no great distance of time covered with forests which have been destroyed by fire – that it depended much on the nature of the woods so destroyed whether the action of the fire was detrimental or otherwise to the soil on which they were grown. Accordingly, wherever trees of the kauri are found in the open soil, either by the presence of its gum or the remains of the tree itself, above or below the top soil, or by those small raised mounds of hard impervious soil which point to the spot where the tree

stood at the time of its upheavement. Wherever these are found we shall likewise find the soil to be inferior in quality, varying, we believe, for better or worse in exact proportion as the original forest was more or less heavy, and the action of the fire consequently more or less intense. We have another description of a friable brown soil, of light texture, overlying a porous subsoil of similar nature, only more closely cemented, and on which the action of fire is apparent. Kauri has been the prevailing timber on such land. At present it produces a stunted growth of ti-tree, fern, and a plant of the fuchsia species which has an oval-shaped leaf of a light-green color, and bears clusters of yellow flowers. This plant is always a sign of sterility, and is known by many settlers as the "poverty plant." As a general rule, the growth indigenous to the soil will indicate its richness or exhaustion at the present moment, but it must depend upon the class to which the soil and subsoil belong, whether in the latter case it be worth while to restore it to a condition of fertility. Flax, tupaki, koromiko or New Zealand willow, which very much resembles the English privet – fern over four feet in height, are all indications of a good soil. But perhaps the more desirable location for the newly arrived emigrant, more especially if his capital be small, is the forest or heavy bush of the Province of Auckland. Here he will be sure of an immediate return for his labour – the land, as soon as cleared, being in excellent condition for the production of the usual crops and vegetables without the necessity of the application of manure. The only exception to this rule is where the forest consists largely of kauri, but this, if within six or seven miles of water carriage, would of itself be too valuable a property to have escaped the notice of larger capitalists for the sake of the timber alone. As however the cultivation of clay lands in the old country is brought

to such perfection – and is so well explained in every work on farming – it will not be necessary for us to say much more on that subject. We will conclude, therefore, that you have determined to settle on or to cultivate bush land – and as this work of managing bush land is peculiar to the Colony of New Zealand, at least to this hemisphere, we will commence by giving the experience of a thorough practical and successful settler.

THE CULTIVATION OF BUSH LAND.

To clear and cultivate bush land is a very different matter to that of fern land, where the first outlay is a team of bullocks, a plough and all the accompanying paraphernalia – the axe and the hoe are the most expensive implements required in clearing the bush – and again, bush land is ready for cultivation when cleared, whereas fern land must be fallowed by the sun and the strong summer atmosphere before any crop can be put into it. Other considerations equally valuable should be considered in connection with bush land – thus the material for housebuilding, for fencing, and other purposes, is immediately within reach. In many cases the timber itself is of considerable money value, and as a general rule the quality of the land is superior to that of the open fern ground. We have often wondered that the possessor of bush land, were he even double the distance back in the forest that he is, should find fault with the apparent solitariness of his situation, or trouble himself so much with what may be his future difficulties, when he has so much work before him for immediate employment. The want of roads, and the anticipated difficulty of getting out the produce when

ready for market, is allowed to be made the bugbear to frighten many a one from settling – a labour, when set about with a will, by no means so great as it at first sight appears, and when shared in by three or four who participate in its advantages, scarcely worth taking into account at all. And in connection with bush clearing it should be taken into consideration that in the first work of erecting a house many prefer the substantial material of slabs or broad palings to the nikau, which we perceive to be in general use among new settlers, as both warmer and neater, more safe from risk of fire, and we believe – for we have built both – the more quickly constructed of the two. The kauri, rimu, kahikatea and totara will be found the best if not the only trees from which slabs may be split. A cross-cut saw, axe, mall and wedges, will be all the tools required – and, from a tree of some thirty inches diameter, a number of slabs may be split in far less time than one unacquainted with the work would believe. The same with the roof. To split shingles is a quicker operation than to collect toi toi or cutting grass, and makes better and more substantial work when finished. As it is said that a man seldom builds or has built for him more than one dwelling house during his lifetime, it may be as well to describe two or three other plans for constructing a house in the bush, so that, with all the experience of others before him, he may select what he is best able to afford or – better still – what will make him most comfortable.

HOW TO BUILD A HOUSE IN THE BUSH.

We will give the experience of a working colonist from one of the local papers – he says, after selecting your land, your

first business will be to erect a habitation, and he gives the following very economical list of useful tools to begin with – two American axes, grindstone, six-feet cross-cut saw, files, set of wedges, maul rings, hand saw and files, hammer, gimblets, pretty strong and different sizes, spokeshave, tomahawk, or small bench axe, 2 1/2 inch augur, smoothing plane, foot-rule, strong line, garden spades, grubbing hoes, dung fork, strong iron rake, six teeth at three inches apart, bill-hooks, fern-hook, scythe and stone, sickles, wooden rakes, hay-fork. In the event of your having working bullocks, you will require bows, yokes, chains, plough, and harrows.

Select a pretty level spot for your house, sheltered if possible from the cold southerly winds and facing the rising sun – and, if your land is near a navigable bay, river, or creek, erect your house near the best landing place. There are many different ways of building houses in the bush – but the one we shall recommend to you is made of either raupo, nikau, or toi toi, it being easily constructed, and very warm and comfortable when well finished – the materials are also plentiful.

Proceed to cut straight posts of hard wood, not less than six inches in diameter, and eight feet long – saw them level at the top ends, that the wall-plate may rest on each of them. Mark out the size of your house, according to your family, twelve feet by twenty will make two good sized rooms. After squaring off the ground plan, dig the corner holes first, making them all two feet deep – put in posts, fill in a little to steady them upright. Fix a line pretty tight from the top of one post to another, by which means you will see if they are nearly all level, and on the square – the line will also be a guide to put in the remainder of the posts. Leave two feet of space between each post, and wider spaces for the door and windows, and a still

larger space for the chimney. Ram all the posts well. The posts for the centre of the end and partition walls must be fourteen feet long, which will give a good pitch to the roof, and also answer to rest the ridge-pole on. Cut long straight pieces for wall plates, square them with the axe to make them lie solid on the top of the posts, and fasten them on with four-inch nails. By searching the bush a little you may find a straight tree, between two and three inches in diameter, that will answer for a ridge-pole – fasten it on with a few nails to steady it. The rafters must be straight, and about three inches in diameter, and fitted on at two feet apart, and made to rest evenly on the wall-plate and ridge-pole. Fasten to the wall-plate with three-inch nails – but smaller nails will answer to fasten the top ends. Battens are the next thing in order. Straight ti-tree poles are very plentiful, and those of about two and half inches diameter are easily split, and make very good battens. Nail them on the walls and roof at about ten inches apart. This done, the place is now ready for the raupo, nikau, or toi toi, which is fastened to the battens with flax, or small cord-like roots, which creep along the bush ground, and which, by enquiring of some of the older residents, you will be shown how to fasten on. The chimney is made of posts, in the same manner as the house, and should be in size about six feet wide by four feet deep, or eight feet wide and six feet deep, and you have room for a bench or comfortable seat at each side of the fire for a little enjoyment in wet cold weather and winter evenings, and this size has another advantage, for it considerably reduces the risk from fire. Let the wall-plates be eighteen inches lower than those of the house. Battens are nailed on the posts, inside and outside, at four inches apart, and filled in between with mortar made of clay and grass chopped up and mixed amongst it, to make it hang together. When

the mortar gets dry, remove a few of the lower inside battens, and build in more mortar to keep the fire from the wood-work. Finish up by plastering inside and outside, until all the battens are covered. The stalk of the chimney is drawn in to the usual width at the top by means of four straight poles about three inches in diameter, extending from the wall-plate to about eighteen inches above the ridge. Fasten them well to the wall-plate, also at the top, with four cross pieces to steady them. The stalk is covered outside with some material, in the manner of weather-boarding. Fix some kind of spouting between the thatch of the house and the stalk of the chimney, to throw the wet off. The chimney is best in the side of the house. A few boards for doors and other inside purposes and window sashes may be bought. Dig a small drain round the outside of the house to keep the damp from the floor. A house built according to the above description will last five years, with very little repair.

Another writer in a newspaper gives his experience in house building, recommending the slab covering to the walls – but our experience is in favour of the raupo, being so warm and comfortable, so cheap and plentiful that for the first five or six years it is certainly to be preferred. The raupo is so well adapted for the construction of buildings of various kinds. A man accustomed to such work will have no difficulty in cutting enough to form the walls of a good sized cottage in a couple of days at the most. As it grows to a great length, it is quite easy to get it long enough to reach from the floor to the roof of your cottage, and of course a saving is in that way effected. When cut, the raupo is laid out so as to get dry in the sun, because of the extreme dampness of the plant just taken from the water. As the raupo has to be tied into thick bundles in building, it is better not to cart it until dry, as

weight and bulk are more while the reeds are damp. In making a raupo cottage the first thing to be done is to get the frame of the house made. This is done much in the same way as in the case of a slab house, the only material difference being that the frame need not be so heavy for raupo as for slabs. We have known cases in which, when the forest was at a distance, and therefore the cartage of rough timber formed a considerable item of expense, the use of sawn timber was resorted to for a frame-work instead of the other. In such cases there is much to be said in favour of such a course. There can be no doubt about the advantages of a regularly framed house. For one thing, it stands twice or three times as long as one made on the rough-and-ready bush principle of sticking the ends of the uprights in the ground, where in a comparatively short time the best of timber must rot. The principle on which this is generally done is that the raupo may after a time be replaced by weather-boards, and so the rude cottage raised to the dignity of a regular farm house.

Admitting however these advantages, there is a good deal to be said against the practice, at all events where rough timber is available. To frame a house so well as to be afterwards available for weather-boards, requires a good deal more knowledge of carpentering, as well as a good many more tools than usually are found in the hands of bushmen. If a carpenter has to be engaged to come and do the work, by the time the half-and-half house has been constructed, it will be found to have cost nearly as much as a regular weather-boarded house, and will after all be but a temporary erection to be pulled down in a few years. Besides this, there is the danger of fire to be considered. It is very difficult indeed to arrange a raupo house so as to be free of this danger in even a moderate degree, and this

should operate as a check upon spending more money upon so dangerous a style of building than cannot be avoided. When the frame-work has been put up in the usual way, slight rods of manuka are tied along at short distances apart, and the raupo is fastened to these by narrow strips of the native flax, or, if a more durable building is aimed at, by tarred string. The approved mode of lying is the one practised by the Maori, and must be seen to be understood. To make a good building it is necessary to have two thicknesses of raupo, that is, to have an outside and an inside layer of the reeds fastened along the walls. In this way a house of tolerable appearance may be constructed at a very cheap rate. It is well to have the roof thatched, and the eaves projecting considerably, as it adds both to the appearance and substantial comfort of the house. Toi-toi with an inside facing of nikau leaves is the material usually employed in thatching roofs – and no better can be got – it is most plentiful near swamps, and infinitely preferable to the common rush. The Maori used to put a layer of a bush-climber, known as munga-munga, upon the top of the regular thatch, and this was most useful in keeping everything in its place. We have ourselves known roofs made in this way by the natives remain good for five years. Usually they will not do this when made by Europeans, as they do not spend so much time on them as the natives did. A three-roomed house built in this way we know to have been put up for seven or eight pounds, without the floor, which can of course be made either of sawn or split timber.

With regard to the comparative advantages of raupo and slab cottages, there is room for a great diversity of opinion. Certainly the slabs will last the longest – but on the other hand they cost most, and are much less warm than raupo cottages. The danger of fire is far greater in the case of

raupo however than slabs – an objection which may be regarded as balancing the extra comfort of the reed house.

On the whole, either kind being regarded merely as a make-shift to last for a very short time, the slabs have in our opinion rather the advantage, being convertible into a barn, stable, or cowshed, after it ceases to be needed for a dwelling-house. The raupo cottage is of little use for any of these purposes – it is moreover sure in a few years to become a perfect nest of rats and mice, and, unless great care is taken, is only too likely to become the haunt of other and if possible less agreeable kinds of vermin.

CLEARING, DRAINING AND FENCING FOR A GARDEN.

Our working colonists go on to tell us that the first work after clearing the surface of the ground will be to have it properly drained, if this is required. But this work being so well described and illustrated in English books, and of course so universally acknowledged to be of such advantage, we do not consider it necessary here either to describe the operation or to recommend it. The following remarks on fencing, draining and planting, copied from a local paper, are very sensibly written and to the point.

Wooden fences can be speedily run up when materials are found convenient – but unless the posts have been all charred at the bottom, and coal-tarred between earth and air, the best kinds of wood will not last more than twelve or sixteen years in favourable soils. Willows are very suitable for wet or marshy places, and can be woven into close fences with a little trouble. Privets intermixed with sweet briars make pretty hedging, where strength is not particularly required. The sea buckthorn is said to make

excellent hedges on cold, bleak exposures, and defies sea winds more than any other. Buckthorn hedges are best when mixed with privets. Beech hedges have their advocates, and so also the holly – tastes infinitely vary. In new Colonies, the cost of fencing and clearing cut deep into the pockets of settlers.

The soil ought to be adapted to the plants, or the plants to the soil, climate and exposure. However favourable the surface soil, unless subsoils are free from mineral substances detrimental to vegetable roots, the plants will not long prosper. A hard ferruginous clay below the staple soil will spoil the whole work. Therefore the necessity of drainage with tiles, with small stones, with woody brush, or by subsoil ploughing. New Zealand is a Colony which will never be cultivated to proper account till the grounds are well sheltered by woods and hedging, and the wet lands thoroughly drained. Good timber in course of years will constitute as high values on landed estates as any other property or stock the owner or owners can have on it. The objection being that the trouble at first is considerable and the return remote, which may be met by many examples. If our forefathers had done nothing for posterity, posterity might have never known that the South Sea Islands – and New Zealand among them – were to be the happy and independent homes of British millions. Planting is not a ready money speculation. To raise good hedges, judicious men recommend the nursing of young quicks on soils similar to those where they ultimately are intended to be planted out. They are acclimatised at once by this simple plan. No violent change takes place in the habits of the young thorns, or whatever kind may be selected. They are moved at once from the nursery and deposited fresh in their future positions.

All living plants should be regarded as living organisations, governed by natural laws, each kind having its own particular physiology. It is therefore important that suitable preparations should be made to plant your hedging in a soil and situation most congenial to their natures and habits, so that no blanks or gaps will disfigure it and render the whole concern comparatively useless.

A protest is already entered against planting on ferruginous and indurated clay subsoils. Often two small ditches are dug and a mound raised between, if the earth taken out is kindly. On top of this mound the plants are carefully placed. Some prudent persons who anxiously desired that their hedge should grow equal and fast, have gone to the trouble of applying stable manure fermented and properly prepared, and their labour was amply repaid.

Thorns and many other plants are tenacious of life – for a few years they seem to thrive on any soil – but if an impenetrable and noxious pan lies under, as soon as the roots descend to this substratum, a stunted growth and an unsightly, unfenceable hedge will result, requiring constant repairs, causing continual outlay, and becomes a source of annoyance and vexation to all concerned. More need not be said. The practical rule for training is laid down, not to allow a hedge to grow faster in height than it fills up in thickness. Gardeners' modes of dwarfing their trees are worthy of imitation. Ground too rich will rush the plants up to height without adequate breadth or thickness, causing much pruning labour to fill up closely.

David Hay – quoting from Professor Way – says that all light soils, such as gravelly, sandy and volcanic, lose much of their fertilising properties through heavy and continued rains – heavy loams and clay soils have an affinity for it and hold it in solution – draining enables rain water to percolate through the soil, diffusing the rich fertilising

ingredients it contains, and also improving what David Hay calls the underground climate, on which the luxuriant growth of plants materially depends – it acts in its passage through the soil by carrying food to the roots of the plants, and not only does it bring to the soil the riches of the air, and so add to its fertility by the addition it thus supplies – but the activity which drainage gives it, and its own solvent powers, make the whole an apt receptacle in which food for plants may be prepared for use. The superabundant water in the soil finds a ready egress by the drains, while the nourishing matter is retained in the earth as food for the plants. The result therefore of artificial land draining, where no natural drainage exists, is cheaper cultivation, a better underground climate, and continuous and abundant plant feeding, giving an earlier and more abundant harvest.

The subject of fencing, whether the common three-rail, the ditch and embankment with one rail on top, one of the American fancy fences, or a permanent live fence, comes next in order. Mr Hay strongly objects to furze for a fence, except in bleak and very exposed places. Thorn hedges raised from seed, planted from four to six inches apart, and kept clear of weeds for the first two years, and at the same time protected from cattle, will form a good fence three years after planting – leave it uncut the first year, and in the spring of the second year cut it down to within a few inches of the ground, then run the hoe along each side, so as to destroy all weeds and leave the surface open and clear that the air may penetrate to the soil. The plants will throw out vigorous shoots the following summer, and after they have reached the height required, they should be trimmed every year in the month of August.

With the following pithy hints about bush work and progress, we close the first part of our work on Colonial farming. The best way of cultivating is simply to fall all

the timber, and run a fire through it when dry, sowing wheat and grass upon the ashes without breaking up the soil or using any means to cover the seed. The timber should have been all cut down by the end of October, to be burnt and sown with wheat in the following March and April. Each tree is fallen, lopped, and the trunk cut into such lengths as one or two men can roll over with levers. When the fire has run through the fallen mass, the logs are rolled together into twos and threes to burn one another out, and the smaller pieces unconsumed are carried to the different fires. As soon as the ashes are cold, wheat at the rate of one and a half or two bushels to the acre is sown broadcast, and in the Spring grass seed at about the same rate. Were the grass not sown with the wheat the first year, the necessity of breaking up the ground by hand for the second year's crop would be entailed upon the settler. Some indeed sow no wheat, but grass at once, thereby avoiding the risk of losing the grass crop through the over-luxuriance of the wheat.

Great as are the advantages offered to the settler by forest lands, too many allow themselves to be scared away from such a selection by the apparent difficulties – the labour of the axe, the want of roads made ready to their hand, and the isolated and lonely position in the bush. The sooner such effeminate specimens of humanity leave the Colony in disgust the better for it and themselves too. They are not the stuff out of which good colonists are made. Hardships indeed – why, they have come to beds of down, to the luxuries of polite life, to all the accessories of civilisation, when compared with the real privations and difficulties which the early settlers had to encounter. It is positively disgusting to listen to their silly laments for the luxuries and comforts they left at home. It is pitiable to see strong men and women, used to labour, quailing before

obstacles, which, in a far more aggravated form, men of education and refinement – delicately reared – have smiled at and overcome. We were lately on the sections of two "forty-acre men," shipmates of each other, of equal age, and the same trade – they had both been settled exactly at the same time upon their farms, about ten months. The one had from the first found fault with everything – the country was a dog-hole, the roads were miserable, the forty-acre system a most villainous take-in. This man has a small patch turned over for a garden, about as large as the site of a good-sized house. The other had at first commenced pig feeding, accumulating manure, and has broken up with the spade and underdrained and fenced above three acres of land, which is planted with onions, potatoes, field-pease, and about half an acre of wheat. This man – by far the poorer of the two – will after this year grow more produce than he can consume. The other at the same time – having eaten up his capital – will not undeservedly be starved off his ground, and swell the ranks of the grumblers – those discontented ignorant idlers about the town, who know far better how to handle a glass of rum than an axe or a spade.

A PERSONAL NARRATIVE.

Twenty-five years ago, I was a boy of twelve, living near one of the richest valley farms in the interior of a New England State. The farm comprised about three hundred acres, of which seventy-five were strong alluvial soil, in meadow, flooded by the high waters of every spring – one hundred more in upland pasture and arable land, and the balance in woodland. The occupant's family consisted of a son and two daughters, the elder of whom was the housekeeper. The "help" was a hired girl and a man, with an

additional hand, and sometimes two in haymaking. Here he spent his life in a fruitless attempt to support his family and educate his children. He was an industrious, hardworking, frugal man, who taught his children habits of the strictest economy – but he was an anti-book farmer, and a patron of the credit system. The merchant, the blacksmith, the wheelwright, and every one with whom he had dealings had accounts, the balance of which were all on the wrong side, and somehow could never be reduced. The ploughs had the old wooden mould-boards faced with strap-iron – the harrow-teeth were made of white oak – a horse-rake he had never seen. The fences were rickety, the buildings dilapidated. There was an orchard, but the knowledge of fruit-culture did not teach that it ever required trimming, and its productions were about as large and as hard as nutmegs. As the meadows lay convenient to the barns, they were fed down closely in autumn – the feed was better there than in the pastures. The cattle were never stabled in winter, nor were racks provided in which to feed them, and the quantity of forage they wasted equalled that which they consumed. The stock died in winter of exposure – in spring of weakness. The crows always called in their early spring migrations, and were always sure of an abundance of animal food. The manure in the cattle yards was rarely distributed, because the meadows were thought to be rich enough without it, and it would not pay to draw it up hill to the pasture lands. It went on accumulating until the very yards were higher than the surrounding fields. The wash of the yards was conveniently disposed of in the neighbouring brook, towards which the yards sloped, and by which they were effectively drained. It was the boast of our neighbourhood that his cattle yards were always dry.

On this farm in those days, an agricultural paper, book, or periodical was never seen. The father entertained a

sovereign contempt for the book farming which one or two of his neighbours were beginning stealthily to practice. With him a change of crops consisted in breaking up the meadow, planting it with corn or potatoes, without manure, the first year, sowing it with oats and a sprinkling of grass seed the next. The idea of applying chemical knowledge to the adaptation of different manures would have been regarded as humbug, and the man who should have predicted modern ploughs, harrows, cultivators, thrashing machines, reapers and mowers, would have been treated in that neighbourhood with the pity and consideration due to an insane person.

The consequences were inevitable – with each year the ends were further from meeting than the year before. Then the pine, oak, and other valuable timber, and finally the cord-wood were cut off to satisfy an old creditor, while making a new one. As the son grew older, he became dissatisfied, broke away from the old homestead, and after encountering the difficulties common to such efforts, obtained an education without paternal aid, studied a profession, and settled in the practice of it in the county town of his native country.

Pass over a score of years with their changes. The father has gone to his rest. In the family arrangement the homestead passed into the possession of the husband of my eldest sister, who has now occupied it some eight or ten years, and he has had no income except that derived from the products of the farm itself.

There is a change there now. In the place of the ruinous dwelling is a large commodious farm-house, with its neat vine-clad portico its shades and blinds, and all the "modern improvements." The parlour has its piano, and, with the other rooms, is finished in a style of substantial elegance. Young shade-trees are springing up around the

lawn in front of it – a neat flower garden is laid out at one side, with a vegetable garden in the rear – young trees are putting forth vigorous shoots, giving promise of abundant fruit of various descriptions.

All the out-buildings are torn down, and the new ones erected in the rear of the house, upon a gentle slope which overlooks the meadow. Here are warm, dry stables for every head of live stock upon the farm. The floors are so constructed as to save all the drippings, and the manure is housed as carefully as the stock. Not a pound of hay or an ounce of grain is fed outside the stables. The straw, stalks, and coarse fodder are all cut and mixed with grain, which is always ground before it is fed out – in this manner not a straw is wasted. Running water is carried into and out of every yard.

Are you curious to look at the stock? Here is a flock of long, coarse-wooled, heavy sheep – "Leicesters" I think he calls them, to begin with. Is not this wool very coarse? you ask, as one of the long-bodied, heavy-quartered, Landseer-like looking animals nibbles at the owner's hand; rather – he replies – but at 1s. 3d. per pound it brings as much money as that of so many Spanish merinos; and he goes on to tell you how it costs no more to keep them than the little merinos – that the ewe almost invariably produces two lambs in each year – that they are very hardy, come early to maturity, and that the lovers of good mutton are quite willing to give two guineas for the carcase of a fat two-year old, when common mutton could hardly be given away. Then, here are his cattle – all selected with a careful eye to their destined uses. Here are pure bloods – Herefords, Devons, Alderneys, and Durhams – some for beef, some for their milking qualities, some for draft oxen. After repeated experiments, he tells you that he has concluded to keep no pigs but those of the Suffolk breed, as they

make pork the cheapest. We look at a pen of them. There is scarcely a greater difference between a greyhound and a porpoise, than between these and the long-legged gaunt species that used to range at will over the potato and corn fields twenty years ago.

Come now into his field. Here he will utterly confound you. He is thoroughly versed in the mystery of agricultural chemistry – start him once upon alkalies and acids, phosphates and superphosphates, silica and alumina, and he becomes abstruse and scientific. And yet there is a singular method in all he says. This field produced nothing. It wanted lime. Lime was furnished, and the corn crop he thinks is sixty bushels to the acre. That one was short of ammonia – ammonia was supplied, and the change is even greater. But I will not particularise further. Here are the hills, the brooks, the old trees, each of which is endeared to me by some association of childhood – but all else is changed. The wilderness has been made to "blossom like a rose."

What are the net results? Upon the farm on which the father grew poor, the son-in-law lives like a country gentleman. His young lady daughters are at the seminary. Instead of a borrower he is a lender – each year adds to his stock-list and note-roll. Out of debt, with a farm and stock worth £4000, living comfortably and elegantly, discharging his duties towards society and his family, he occupies a position of happy independence which a professional man can never hope to attain.

What is the secret of this change? Go into his library and you will see the explanation. He is at the same time a practical and a scientific farmer. Books and papers – those garners of the experiences of other men – in part are the tools with which he works. These teach what improvements are really valuable, and he adopts them.

The best investment he makes is agricultural literature. He will tell you how an article which taught him to set his fence posts with the tops downwards, and gave the reason why he should do so, has doubled the length of time that his posts and board fences are serviceable, with various other illustrations not less curious. Books upon chemistry, meteorology, manures, upon horses, cattle, and sheep, fruit and horticulture, and all kindred subjects, with all the approved periodicals (to many of which he contributes), you will find there – all giving evidence of the thorough reading to which they have been subjected. On the whole I pronounce his establishment the best cure I have ever seen for the malady which afflict too many of our farmers still, called "prejudice against book-farming."

A farmer should never break up more land than he can cultivate thoroughly – half-tilled land is always growing poorer, while well-tilled land is constantly improving. A thrifty and prudent farmer will not devote his sole attention to the improvement of certain fields on his farm, because the land is "easy to work at," and let other portions of his premises go uncultivated, and grow nothing but brush, bogs, briars, and stones.

A farmer should never have more cattle, horses, or other live stock than he can keep in good order. An animal in good order at the beginning of winter is already half wintered. Nor should he let his cattle endure the chilling storms of winter in an open yard or field, whilst a few shillings expended in providing comfortable stables would amply repay him in saving of fodder, and afford a greater quantity of milk.

A farmer should never depend too much on his neighbour for what he can by careful management produce on his own land. He should not make it a common practice

to either buy or beg fruit while be can plant trees and cultivate them on his own ground – nor annoy his neighbours by borrowing tools to work with, while he can make or buy them. "The borrower is servant to the lender."

A farmer should never be so immersed in political matters as to neglect doing his various kinds of work in due season, and to tidy up matters and things for the winter – nor should he be so inattentive to politics as to remain ignorant of those great questions of national and state policy which will always agitate more or less a free people.

A farmer should not be continually borrowing a neighbour's newspaper, while he can easily save money enough – by curtailing some little extravagance, to subscribe and pay for one or more of his own.

A farmer should never refuse a fair price for anything he wishes to sell. I have known men to refuse six shillings for a bushel of corn, and after keeping it for five or six months they were glad to get four shillings for it. I have known farmers refuse to take a fair marketable price for their butter, and after keeping it three or four months they concluded to sell it for two-thirds of the price they were first offered. "A bird in hand is worth two in the bush."

A farmer should not let his buildings go to decay while he can afford the means to keep them in repair – nor should he allow tattered clothes to be stuffed in broken windows to take the place of glass. If he does, he will soon acquire the reputation of a man who tarries long in the gin-shop.

A farmer should not be contented with dilapidated-looking fences on his farm, so as not to tempt his cattle to become unruly and destroy his crops, while he has plenty of opportunities and material to make or keep them in repair.

THE CLIMATE OF NEW ZEALAND.

MEAN TEMPERATURE OF PLACES IN NEW ZEALAND.

MEAN TEMPERATURE OF PLACES IN NEW ZEALAND.

MEAN TEMPERATURE OF PLACES IN THE NORTHERN HEMISPHERE TO COMPARE WITH NEW ZEALAND.

MEAN TEMPERATURE OF PLACES IN THE NORTHERN HEMISPHERE TO COMPARE WITH NEW ZEALAND.

JANUARY is the warmest and one of the finest months of the year. The temperature of the month of FEBRUARY nearly resembles that of January, and is equally dry. In MARCH the thermometer falls a little, but the weather con-

tinues as dry as during the two previous months. In APRIL the temperature becomes sensibly cooler, and the weather more unsettled and showery. In the month of MAY the air begins to have an autumnal feel, and the weather is much more wet than in the preceding month – but towards the end of the month there are generally some of the finest days of the year – calm, temperate and bright. In the month of JUNE the weather is cold and chilly – but it is very little more unsettled than the two preceding it – during this month we also find some very fine, clear days which are very pleasant. JULY is generally the worst month in the year, the very depth of winter, cold and wet, the ground being now saturated with moisture, the water does not readily drain away or evaporate – the dry days however are commonly bright and clear, but there is little frost and no snow, the temperature being about ten degrees warmer in New Zealand than in an English winter. In AUGUST a slight improvement generally takes place – there is rather less rain than in July, and towards the end of the month the air becomes perceptibly warmer. In SEPTEMBER spring commences – rain falls in less quantity and not so frequent, and the roads soon dry up after a rain. The weather in OCTOBER is sometimes fine and dry – at other times cold and boisterous, high winds and squalls from the westward, with showers, the cold is disagreeable. In NOVEMBER the temperature increases rapidly – but the weather is sometimes unsettled. In DECEMBER the thermometer rises still higher, the weather is more settled, and the warmth nearly equals that of January.

SECOND PART.

SECOND PART.

"It has been justly said that no pursuit requires more talent, more perseverance, and more careful observation than the cultivation of the earth – and since it has been found that the labours of the chemist, the botanist, the mechanist and the geologist are available in the services of the farmer, it has followed as a natural consequence that the farmers of our age have become a more scientific, more educated, and a far more enlightened class than those of any previous generation."

THE EARTH in its natural state is said to be covered by those plants whose habits are best adapted to the climate and to the chemical and physical nature of the soil. The earth is but the bed – says Sharon Turner in his Sacred History of the World – in which the vegetable nutriment is best prepared and presented to the absorbing root, this is an oxide of carbon or humic acid made by chemical union with water, and which forms that humus or soil which most promotes vegetation – without this vegetable humus, and the humic acid contained in it, plants will not grow. In contemplating the germination and growth of the wheat plant, its composition and origin, Alfred Sibson says – "We know that the grain of wheat contains flour which, when properly prepared, will become bread capable of nourishing and strengthening our bodies, but whence comes this flour – we know that since the plants appeared above ground they have gradually increased in substance, and have fully developed their seeds or grains – but from whence have they derived the necessary material – from the

earth, the air, the moisture, or from each of these sources. What marvellous changes must take place before these materials can become the vegetable produce called wheat. The farmer knows that it has been produced chiefly at the expense of the soil – he knows that some essential constituents have been directly obtained from the soil, for it will require manure and rest before it can produce such another crop. The farmer, although acquainted with the practical details of the matter, if he be unacquainted with chemistry is equally at a loss to account for the changes in the materials – he cannot tell what the wheat removes from the soil, and why it should not grow with equal vigour in the same field a second year – or why a crop of another kind will – in short, without a knowledge of chemistry he cannot explain the action of the manure he uses, what it is in the manure that imparts fertility to the soil, and why one kind of manure more particularly benefits one kind of crop, or why clover, pease and all leguminous plants flourish most luxuriantly on lime soils and languish or refuse to grow in soils deficient in lime – why clay soils are most favourable to the growth of wheat. The metals, when abundant in the soil either as oxides or salts – as lead, mercury, and tin – are certain poisons, while the vegetable acids and their salts favour the development of plants. The alkalies, sulphur, camphor, and the essential oils accelerate vegetation, especially camphor, but we need not enter into the scientific department of farming, the chemistry, the physiology, and the meteorology of agriculture – these matters will be found thoroughly explained in the works of Johnston, Loudon, Stephen, Morton, &c, and our farmers should make themselves well acquainted with this subject. The same may be said of the historical part of it, but we shall quote from Colton the following remarks – "It is not known where he that invented the plough was born, nor where he died,

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

yet he has effected more for the happiness of the world than the whole race of heroes and of conquerors who have drenched it with tears and manured it with blood, and whose birth, parentage and education have been handed down to us with a precision precisely proportionate to the mischief they have done."

In the former part of this work we have carefully led the settler step by step into the practical knowledge of bush work, as Colonial farming is generally called – we have described the best methods of grappling with the new life in all its trials – for we have experienced them – and can therefore speak from a thorough knowledge of the subject.

In this the second part we shall describe the daily work required to be done in its proper season – and the operations more particularly applicable to each month.

In the neighbourhood of Auckland the want of trees to relieve the bare monotony of the brown hills – is noticed by strangers, and often commented on as showing want of taste. Of course this is not the case – but we trust to see this rectified soon, as it will not only beautify the natural scenery, but help to break the force of the bleak south-west wind. Suburban as well as country settlers should see to the planting of trees – either forest or fruit answer equally well – for even fruit trees may be planted round the fields, to be used as posts to hang the fence on. How much a sprinkling of forest trees in the hedge or corners of enclosures gives a dignito to a place. There cannot be a more cheerless object in a landscape than a house – however substantially built and furnished – standing naked and alone, without a sheltering bush or tree to indicate either the taste or the competence of the occupiers within. The lowliest hut, environed by a few patriarchs of the forest, is an interesting object, and far more delightful to the eye

than the proudest mansion bare and unaccompanied by trees – and in grass lands, what can be better. At One-tree Hill near Auckland Mr. Farmer has some fine young plantations, and we have observed at several other places patches of young trees gradually making themselves visible in the landscape.

USEFUL HINTS TO FARMERS.

If butter churned in morning air
Is kept in a cool place with care,
The taste is nice;
But that which shows the buttermilk
Don't sell to those who dress in silk –
For any price.

When the wind is east and turkeys gobble,
It is no time a horse to hobble;
But let him range to catch the breeze –
Should he be troubled with the heaves.

An ox with broad horns and short glossy hair,
Is good for a team, the market, and fair.

The slackest farmer, strange to say,
Is known for being out of hay.

It does not pay in any way,
To milk a cow three times a day.

When chickens roost above the mowe,
It spoils the hay for horse or cow.

The well-bred daughter of a farmer,
A prudent helpmate and a charmer.

Geese in a pasture spoil the grass,
For horses, oxen, and the ass.

It is no place to set up poles
Where moles and mice have dug their holes.

Cob make no food for kine to eat,
But they are good for smoking meat.

[Monthly Calendar]

OPERATIONS FOR JANUARY.

JANUARY.

THE CLIMATE OF NEW ZEALAND FOR JANUARY.

Mean Barometer.

Mean temper.

Rainy days.

Total rainfall.

Prevailing winds.

Auckland

29.800

71.6

7

3.16

SW&NE

New Plymouth

29.885

66.8

15

7.36

W&SW

Napier

29.804

661

5

4.51

SE&NW

Wellington

29.800

62.1

13

9.57

N&S

Nelson

29.882

66.0

6

10.33

N & NE

Christchurch

29.809

61.2

8

4.10

NE&SW

Dunedin

29.872

57.5

21

4.91

NE&W

Invercargill

29.875

50.3

17

6.87

W&NW

THIS is the middle of Summer, very hot and very dry, and is the harvest month in the Northern Island of New Zealand. We will begin with the Cereal Crops – be careful never to allow this crop to get over ripe before reaping, as in our dry climate a breeze of wind will sometimes shake out a large quantity before it can be secured. The Wheat should be cut when the stalk is yellow the whole length, and the head still upright – it not only saves the grain being shaken out by a strong breeze, but the sample as compared with that cut when dead ripe is brighter, contains more flour and less bran per bushel – and the straw, if used for fodder, contains nutritive matter more easily digestible – if the wheat is on bush land and very rank, leave a good high stubble, and after the wheat is cleared off the land and the stubble dry, set fire to it, and it will burn out a great many surface roots, weeds, and vermin – for this purpose some farmers burn their grass stubble as well – but be very careful before burning to see that the ground around your buildings, stacks, and fences is not connected

or liable to be enveloped in the fire. Barley seems not to succeed on new land, but fine samples have been produced after a crop of turnip fed off with sheep. The volcanic soils appear well adapted to the growth of barley, and it is probable that land after having been in grass will grow good crops of barley. As the straw of Oats is used for fodder, cut it early or before it is fully ripe – although it generally ripens unevenly, the unripe heads, after thrashing, will make excellent fodder. During this and the next month all sowing must be discontinued, as the ground is too dry – but new ground, if not too hard, may be ploughed and harrowed, weeds, fern roots, and all rubbish may be spread on the surface, and when quite dry, gathered into small heaps, covered with earth, and burnt, keeping the ashes on the top. Maize is ripe when the leaves which cover the corn are withered and dry – strip all the leaves off except three or four which will answer to fasten as many heads of corn together to hang them up to dry – farmers should never allow their crops to get too ripe before reaping – for a strong breeze of wind, as we have already said, will shake out a great quantity – and what makes this more important, the first ripe grain, and the grain that first shakes out, is always the best quality. Hand reaping has given place to the scythe, and even in New Zealand the scythe will soon disappear before the reaping machine – but hand reaping has this advantage, the straw not being so valuable here as at home – with the hook you can cut higher and leave more stubble, which can be burnt off, and you have a saving in carting, stacking, and also in thrashing, there being less straw to pass through the machine. If you reap during fine, settled weather, stacking may be dispensed with – you can thrash out the grain at once, for at this time we have generally clear settled weather and long days. Remove the grain at once to a safe place, while the

roads are dry and carting can be easily done – but if you stack the grain see that it is thatched at once, for we hear it often said that much loss is sustained by our farmers through carelessness in the field, or neglect in protecting the grain after it has been reaped. Cart fencing and other timber, and make or repair bridges.

The cultivation of Tobacco in Victoria is thus described: A dark loamy soil is recommended as the best suited for tobacco culture – and the month of August is indicated as the most eligible for sowing the seed. One ounce of Virginia is said to be sufficient for an acre – the seed being deposited in the first instance in a bed prepared as if for onion seed, and covered with boughs to protect it from frost. As soon as the young plants are fit for transplanting, and in moist weather, draw them carefully, leaving as much earth at the roots as will adhere. Put them in straight rows with a dibble, three feet apart each way, the same as cabbage planting, leaving two shingles by each plant, to be placed in such a position as to shelter it from the noonday sun and from sudden gusts of sharp wind. If a plant die, draw it, and supply its place from the bed. When grown to the height of ten or twelve inches heel the plants with a hoe very carefully, clipping between the rows to prevent the possibility of weeds appearing. When they attain the height of one and a half or two feet, perform the same operation again, which will generally be sufficient. Attend in the afternoon to the suckering. The suckers are small shoots which sprout at the stem of the large leaf. Nip these off, and also the top of the stalk, should it branch into suckers or run to seed. By this means the leaf will become much larger, and this is a desirable object to the manufacturer as well as a gain in weight and price to the grower. As soon as the leaf changes from green to yellow

it is ripe – cut early in the afternoon, at about two inches from the ground, laying the stalk carefully down so as not to break the leaves – after sundown, or perhaps sooner, there will be no danger of breaking them by removal into a shed prepared for the purpose of hanging them up. This shed should be so constructed that the air can have free circulation, and the tobacco be well protected from rain and the rays of the sun. Inside place saplings across like tie beams, to which tie each stalk by the butt end – not crushed together. When the leaf is fit to take off the stalk, it will assume a dark yellow color. In moist weather the leaf will be quite limber, and at such seasons take off as many as the hand will hold easily by the butt ends, and tie with a single leaf so as to hold them together.

A ton an acre is a not extraordinary yield, the unmanufactured article at 9d. per pound would give a return of £84 per acre. Here appears to be a branch of agriculture which might be advantageously combined with those ordinarily pursued by the farmer, holding out as it does the promise of greater remuneration than is derived from the cultivation of many articles of produce. Indeed, the success of farming will always depend on the variety of the crops cultivated and the consequent equalisation of the risks incurred. The agriculturist who, to employ the language of the homely adage, deposits all his eggs in one basket, may be ruined by a single disastrous season – but he who distributes them in several baskets can afford the loss of one or two, because the unexpected produce of some of the others will compensate him for the partial calamity. The Colonial yeoman whose scheme of husbandry includes the cultivation of a vineyard, an orchard, a tobacco patch, &c, combined with a dairy and poultry yard, may defy the accident of a bad season.

OPERATIONS FOR FEBRUARY.

FEBRUARY.

THE CLIMATE OF NEW ZEALAND FOR FEBRUARY.

Mean Barometer.

Mean temper.

Rainy days.

Total rainfall.

Prevailing winds.

Auckland

29.804

70.4

9

2.79

NE & SW

New Plymouth

29.981

64.6

10

3.62

W&NE

Napier

29.946

69.7

1

0.10

NE&SE

Wellington

29.906

64.1

8

3.10

N& S

Nelson

30.003

63.5

7

6.08

N& NE

Christchurch

29.844

60.4

6

1.65

NE & SW

Dunedin

29.95S

58.1

16

3.93

NE & W

Invercargill

29.882

55.6

15

5.58

W&NW

THIS month is generally hot and dry, and seeds sown now will not germinate – however there is plenty of work to be done, as ploughing, harrowing, burning, fencing, ditching, draining, clearing water courses, carting a good stock of manure, as guano and bone-dust for top-dressing, and making general preparations for sowing autumn crops next month. The main crop of Potatoes if properly ripened may now be taken up and put away in an open shed, first selecting your seed for next year – pick fine formed smooth-skinned flat-eyed middling sized potatoes (some farmers will use none but the largest ones cut, leaving one eye in each set), spread those for seed in the open air to green before storing away. Having removed the grain from the field and eaten off the grass and weeds with stock, proceed to plough up the land. Collect the rubbish and burn it – this will assist to destroy insects and weeds and is the easiest method of getting them out of the way, and the ashes are excellent top-dressing manure. One writer says – in the operation of paring and

burning it may at first sight seem wasteful thus to burn and dissipate in the air what by decay would yield organic food to plants, but the fact is that most of the organic matter destroyed in this process is unfit for any useful purpose – for in many soils the organic matter accumulates too rapidly and attains an objectionable proportion in the soil, in such cases burning supplies us with the best means of getting rid of it. In foul pastures or land full of roots and weeds, paring and burning is resorted to for the same purpose, and it is an excellent method of cleaning such land. In the case of weeds or inferior grasses, much benefit will result to the soil from their destruction by fire – as they when allowed to grow, remove from the soil many useful mineral substances, but when consumed by fire all these are recovered and returned to the soil in a condition that can at once be appropriated by cultivated plants – thus the ash obtained by paring and burning is a mixture of burnt clay and earth with all the mineral constituents of the vegetable matter used in the process, and together constitute a valuable manure, especially for root crops. Cape Barley and Oats for green fodder may be sown this month – it may not vegetate very evenly, but if it is in the ground it will be ready to spring with the first rain.

The Californian Prairie Grass grows to the height of eighteen inches, or even taller – will bear cutting three or four times in the year – thrives well in this country, is a permanent grass, and does not appear to suffer from drought.

Tares are a good green crop, and by well covering the land so improve it that they may follow wheat, and will after they are taken off, have prepared the soil for another crop of wheat, without injury to the field. – Australian Farmer.

OPERATIONS FOR MARCH.

MARCH.

THE CLIMATE OF NEW ZEALAND FOR MARCH.

Mean Barometer.

Mean temper.

Rainy days.

Total rainfall.

Prevailing winds.

Auckland

29.909

67.6

7

2.45

NE & SW

New Plymouth.

30.063

61.1

6

0.76

SW&W

Napier

29.985

62.5

2

0.28

NE&NW

Wellington

29.931

60.5

8

0.33

N& S

Nelson

30.044

59.0

5

4.77

N & NE

Christchurch

30.025

55.5

7

3.14

NE&SW

Dunedin

30.067

53.9

13

2.76

NE&W

Invercargill

29.987

51.9

15

4.42

SE&NW

THIS is also a dry warm month, but the days begin to shorten and the sun is not so powerful. All bush ready for burning should be burnt off during this month, as wood seldom burns off well after rain. If the bush is cleared and intended for grass, when the ashes are cool and whenever there is the appearance of rain, it is as well to sow the grass seed to enable the plants to get a start before the heavy rains set in – but should the weather continue dry it will be as safe to put off the sowing till April. In sowing on the surface early and in dry weather, the seed being moistened with the dew partially vegetates, but the hot sun again dries it up and destroys it. It is quite different however on cultivated lands, where the seeds can be covered with sufficient soil by the harrow to protect them from the rays of the sun. As no seed will grow without moisture, it should always be carefully covered to the proper depth. The process of vegetation is thus described – first water is absorbed by the pores of the external covering and decom-

posed, the seed gradually swells, its membranes burst and the germ expands – the root is at first rapidly developed, the materials for its growth being derived from the young leaves, and when it shoots out its fibres or rootlets, these absorb nourishment from the soil, and the young stem is developed rising upwards in a contrary direction to the root and expanding into stem and leaves – for this growth the presence of air is requisite, for if it were carefully excluded, though there were heat and moisture, the seed would not vegetate – and thus it is that seeds buried very deep in the earth or in stiff clay will not grow, but when air is admitted to them by turning up the soil they then vegetate – it is therefore obvious that the different requisites for germination are attained by placing the seed just under the surface of the soil (for too much light is injurious to the growth of the seed), where, warmed by the sun's rays and moistened by the humidity of the atmosphere, it is excluded from the intense light and the air has access to it. This matter is of great consequence to the farmer, and should not be forgotten, as it often gives a bad name to good seed. The fern land that was ploughed up in December or January, or even earlier, after being thus exposed to the weather, may now be sown with grass, not less than one bushel to the acre, along with about one hundredweight of guano – do not cross-harrow it, but when the grass begins to stool roll it, so as to level the ground for mowing. The ram should be turned to the ewes this month, if you can depend upon having plenty of food for the lambing ewes in August. If the potatoes are ripe for digging, that is if the stalks are withered and the skin firm on the potato, if they were not dug last month, now is the time to take them up. McEwin recommends new settlers when digging out potatoes in March, to sow each evening the ground dug during the day, with oats about four bushels

to the acre, and rake or harrow it in at once – in July he had green oats four feet high and as thick as they could stand, and early in September he dug in the second growth of over two feet, and had on the same ground a second crop of potatoes better than the first – two crops of the same kind are not generally allowed to follow each other – he says that potatoes of early kinds planted about the middle of March are found to produce as good crops as when planted in spring – well raised ridges or lazy beds are preferable to drills for winter crop – a little bone dust will stimulate them and be useful to the succeeding crop. It assists very much to clean the land if this crop is taken up early, and when there is a large breadth of potatoes it is usual to plough them out, the pickers following the plough – it is not so clean a way as the fork, but where labour is scarce and expensive the plough makes quick work, even though some of the potatoes are left in the ground. If you pit the potatoes for three months – which is as good a plan as any – you can cover them with straw, rushes, or fern, but never use the haulms, as they so often contain the eggs of the moth, which destroys the potato – cover the sides of the pit with earth, but not the top, as the potato would heat, and if the vapour thereby created could not escape, would rot them – but whatever you do, keep them dry during the winter. Sow turnips, rape, clover and oats (oats and turnips for green food), and on dry land Cape barley – get everything ready by the middle of the month for putting in the main winter crops – give new land three ploughings and harrowings previous to sowing or laying down to permanent pasture – if the ground is naturally wet, lay it up in twelve or twenty-four furrow ridges, or if on a hill, side, angle the furrows, for if at right angles the best soil will be washed away. In sowing, choose a still day and mix all together before doing so, and harrow lightly – cover

slightly to exclude light, but not deep enough to keep out the air, one quarter of an inch is sufficient. Sow no oats with the grass, but if the ground is much exposed, a handful of oats along with the grass seed would not do much harm, as the sheep might be turned on it in two months hence. The quantity of seed required per acre is eight pounds of clover (4 lbs. white and 4 lbs. red) and one bushel of rye-grass; or six pounds of red clover two pounds of white clover two pounds of trefoil half a bushel of rye-grass and two or three pounds of cocksfoot. The new hand sowing machines will enable you to sow each sort by itself separately if preferred, more carefully and with equal expedition as sowing all at once by the hand.

Lucerne is a valuable food for this country, being little injured by continued dry weather – deriving much of its nourishment from the depth the roots penetrate. It likes a good friable sandy soil, with a good sub-soil. The ground must be ploughed at least a foot deep – and the soil, if not good or exhausted, must be well manured before sowing the seed. The drill system is preferred. The drills drawn fourteen inches apart, and the plants kept free from weeds, and hoed out so as to leave a distance of twelve inches between them. They will bear transplanting. If kept clean while young they thrive fast and soon cover the ground, keeping it free from weeds. Lucerne may be cut at least five times during the season, and is valuable feed for dairy cows as well as horses – but must be cut some time before use, being from its moist nature liable to blow them. The seed of lucerne is very similar to that of white clover, but larger and paler – and care should be taken to procure it plump and new, as it does not grow freely when more than one year old. The seed should be covered about an inch, or less in strong soils. – Australian Farmer.

OPERATIONS FOR APRIL.

APRIL.

THE CLIMATE OF NEW ZEALAND FOR APRIL.

Mean Barometer.

Mean temper.

Rainy days.

Total rainfall.

Prevailing winds.

Auckland

30.007

62.8

10

3.63

SW

New Plymouth

30.146

60.7

10

3.08

W&SW

Napier

29.942

57.7

4

1.28

E & SE

Wellington

29.916

57.4

3

1.01

N& S

Nelson

29.934

58.0

3

3.44

N& SW

Christchurch

29.861

52.4

6

0.75

NE & E

Dunedin

29.899

60.8

10

0.72

W& SW

Invercargill

29.985

49.1

19

4.51

W&NW

WE have in this month generally fine weather with some showers, and if there is sufficient moisture the grass grows well – the autumn is more congenial than the spring, being less subject to cold winds. You may continue to sow oats for green food as recommended last month, but more particularly on land foul with small weeds, such as sorrel, &c, such lands after the grain or potato harvest should be well fallowed and the weeds and rubbish burnt, then you can sow it with oats three bushels to the acre, to be grazed or cut by the end of September or October. This crop will during the winter keep down small weeds, and after being well grazed out should be ploughed and laid down with grass and clover, sowing at the same time two bushels of maize per acre, this would shade the young grass and clover from the scorching summer sun, and would also be fine feed for cattle the following March, when green food is scarce and the ground firm. Rape is excellent to sow with grass seeds, as the leaves spread and assist to

keep the ground moist, thus affording shelter to the young clover, but be careful not to let the rape get too high, as it would then injure the grass – it affords an early bite for sheep, and they help to consolidate the new land, which is much required here – it is astonishing how much good sheep do to newly laid down pastures if the land is not a stiff clay – four pounds of rape to the acre. During the wet winter months cattle should not be allowed on young grass as they injure it. Land intended for wheat should now be well ploughed and harrowed – potato land is preferable to any other, if it was well wrought and manured for the potatoes, but always remember that in breaking up land either new or old, the land broken up during dry weather will grow the best crop. If September lambs will be soon enough for the farm, the rams should be with the ewes this month. Sow cabbages, Swedish turnips, mangolds and early stone turnips, to be eaten off with sheep in the spring. Sow winter vetches with oats, as the oats will keep them off the ground – hoe and clear off weeds, and mould up and thin out the above as they require. Finish burning off for the season by the end of this month.

Clovers of various kinds are found advantageous for feeding stock, particularly the red clover, care being taken to cut it a few hours before it is given to the animals, particularly if it is wet from rain or dew – otherwise it will be apt to blow them.

The flesh-colored Clover is a desirable kind, as it will grow all the winter, and early in the spring may be fed off by sheep, or left longer and cut as green feed, or made into hay. – Australian Farmer.

OPERATIONS FOR MAY.

MAY.

THE CLIMATE OF NEW ZEALAND FOR MAY.

THE CLIMATE OF NEW ZEALAND FOR MAY.

THE wet season will now have set in, and out door work must be regulated accordingly. In sowing wheat, bush land, requires very little being done to it, just sow the seed and chip it in with a hoe – the finest crop of wheat we ever saw in the Colony was sown in April – but then you must have the land clean, and sow not more than two bushels to the acre, as it has time to tiller out. After the wheat is sown, sow grass seed and draw a bush harrow over it – this for bush land just cleared – but for the regular crop, if the land intended for the wheat is in a fit state, begin sowing about one and a half bushels per acre, if the seed is good and you cover it properly. This is less than is usually sown broadcast in England, but our winters are mild, and there is not frost sufficient to destroy any of it. In New South Wales and Victoria one bushel only per acre is sown, and found at harvest to be as thick as a crop in the old country from three bushels. In reference to thick and thin sowing some farmers contend that poor soils should be sown thick,

as the crop is never found too thick at harvest, and that fertile soils should be sown thin, as they seldom produce thin crops. Other farmers say that poor land should be sown thin, as the soil is not able to produce a thick heavy crop, and by sowing thick some plants will die for want of nutriment, and by their partial growth will deprive the other plants of some of their food and consequently weaken them – that fertile soils should be sown thick, as they have strength sufficient to perfect a greater number of plants – we incline to think that this latter idea is the most reasonable – but all early sowings should be thin, and late sowings should be thicker, because the plants will have less time to spread, and will be forced on to maturity in a shorter time. Thin sowing developes a large ear, grain, and stem, but delays maturity, it is best in autumn – thick sowing is best on newly broken up ground, as it keeps the roots nearer the surface – on old land in high condition thick sowing is bad. The wheat crop varies considerably in different countries, and even in the same country in different seasons – with regard to seasons the probability is that winter wheat from its being longer in the ground than spring kinds, the roots will have more time to collect food, and thus the grain is likely to be better developed, and consequently more valuable than spring sown wheat, all other things being equal. It is proverbial among farmers that thunder weather is beneficial to the filling up of grain crops, and scientific men have established the fact that rain falling during a thunder storm contains more nitrogen in the shape of nitric acid than at other times, and consequently would be more refreshing to vegetation, but whether the cause of this was the ammonia volatilized from decomposing organic matter or from the action of the electric spark, or the constituents of the air which are also the constituents of nitric acid, is a matter of doubt –

Cavendish was the first to observe that by a continued passage of electric sparks through moist air its volume diminished, and an acid soluble in water was formed at the same time, and this great philosopher proved by a series of decisive experiments that the constituents of the air – the nitrogen and oxigen united – form nitric acid when exposed to the influence of electricity. If this is correct, of course it is the explanation why wheat grown in or near the tropics – where thunder storms are more frequent than in the temperate regions – contains more gluten than that grown in colder climates, and for this reason wheat grown in Australia should contain more gluten than that grown in this country, as lightning is much more frequent in Australia than in New Zealand, and this is said to be the case.

See to the furrows and ditches and keep the mouths of drains clear, and never allow water to lodge on ground under crop. Young stock and milch cows must be kept up in condition and the yards and sheds put in repair. Have plenty of litter, fern, and any other material that can be converted into manure spread in the sheds. See that you keep the cattle dry and comfortable, for when exposed and without shelter to the cold winds and rain, it very soon takes the flesh off them. There should also be plenty of food, such as Swedish turnips, mangolds, carrots, sugar grass and maize, with a little hay in very wet weather.

Saintfoin is a valuable perennial, more nutricious than lucerne, and having the advantage of not being apt to blow animals fed on it when first cut – indeed they can be turned into the field where it is grown to feed it off, or even be tethered on it without injury to themselves or the plants – only one cut can well be taken from it in the year, as a second is apt to weaken it.

Saintfoin is a deep-rooted perennial, with spreading stems and showy red flowers. It is a native of England and other parts of Europe, and much cultivated there for its many valuable qualities. Though it cannot be grown to perfection on land deficient of lime, yet it may be cultivated in poor gravelly soil, or even on sandy soil, where no other crop would be worth cultivation – and should the plants be thin, it would be a good plan to let them remain for seed the first year – which would thicken the crop for the following years. The seed no doubt would sell well, and the straw make good feed for horses or cattle. The land should be ploughed deep, and well cleaned from weeds. The seed being somewhat large must be well covered – for this reason it should receive a light rolling after being sown. It thrives well sown broadcast, four bushels to the acre, with a bushel of barley which shelters the young plants. Or if the drill system is preferred, the barley can be sown in the usual way by drilling, and the saintfoin sown in nine inch furrows across the barley. When the ground is very dry it is advisable to give it a light harrowing previous to rolling, that the seed may be well covered. It cannot be sown too early in the spring. Oats or buck wheat may be substituted for barley if desired, a crop of green feed or hay may be taken, and afterwards it can be fed off by cattle, horses, or sheep – either by tethering or confining them in hurdles – or the crop may stand for seed. It will continue in a profitable state for eight or ten years, if a top-dressing of ashes and soot is given it in the beginning of the year – and by this time all stalks must be removed, or the plants will be injured. In saving seed the crop must remain on the land till the husks turn brownish, and seeds are plump and firm. Best time to cut it is when most of the seeds are well filled, the first blown ripe and the last blown beginning to be full. – Australian Farmer.

OPERATIONS FOR JUNE.

JUNE.

THE CLIMATE OF NEW ZEALAND FOR JUNE.

THE CLIMATE OF NEW ZEALAND FOR JUNE.

THIS is the first winter, or rather rainy month. Our winters are very mild in New Zealand – in the North or Auckland Province we have neither frost nor snow, but if the wind blows from the South for two or three days continuously we may have hoar frost and even a slight black frost. In the Middle Island there is both frost and snow with a vengeance – very bitter and destructive to sheep and cattle – the cold showers of May, June and July are injurious to live stock if they have no shelter, such as bush or shed to run into, in fact farmers will find it very much to their interest to have sheds in their inclosed paddocks, as the cold rain causes a loss of heat to the animal – which of course is equivalent to a waste of food. Although grass grows here all the winter it is very watery and less nutritious than spring or summer grasses, and most live stock require some nutritious food in addition to grass during this and the next two months, and in exposed situations they will be all the better of a little good hay up to the middle of September – good hay is about

as good as anything, the grass being excessively watery, the hay will absorb some of it and prevent animals from purging. In connection with this matter we find that young and growing animals require a more concentrated and readily digestible food than full grown or store beasts – as the food for growing stock has not only to supply the daily waste of muscle, but must also increase the weight of the animal, and as the process of renewal in young animals goes on more rapidly than in full grown stock, the food of the former should contain a larger supply of flesh-forming substances and of bone-forming materials, hence the great value of linseed cake and linseed jelly for young stock, and the poor condition of young beasts fed upon too much chaff, as we find to be the case in the old country – the yet tender organs of digestion require a more easily digestible food than that upon which store beasts may be fed upon with economy – and of course it is found that the food which may be valuable for store beasts will often be totally unfit for young stock – thus beans are highly nutritious when given to horses, while for fattening cattle their value is much less. Cut straw given by itself may support store cattle, but it will not for any length of time sustain the life of sheep or horses. Some animals – like the Herefordshire cows and shorthorns – are naturally good fatteners, while Welsh cattle and Kerry cows will never become very fat, even though they were kept for a long time on abundant supplies of the choicest food. The harder the animal is kept at work the greater will be the waste of muscle, and consequently the food ought to be richer in flesh-forming matter for working horses or bullocks. Grass and clover left uncut till it becomes dead ripe is not easily digested – but the soft fibre of young grass and clover is readily assimilated and transformed into starch, sugar, and finally into fat. Experience shows that horses require a less bulky and more

concentrated food than cattle. We have said so much on the subject of feeding, because it is so sadly neglected in this Colony, not being so much required as in England – therefore observe the golden maxim that the quieter and warmer we keep the animal – and the more we facilitate the assimilation of food – the more rapidly it will become fat – and remember there is no profit in keeping a beast too long – keep it growing and feeding, and as soon as possible turn it into money, for rich feeding makes rich manure, &c, boiled food with a handful of salt in it is better for fattening pigs than green food – and salt by the way is good for all stock, it keeps them healthy and prevents disease – it is one of the ingredients required to make healthy blood, and without its constituents animals cannot digest their food. A practical farmer says that salt as a condiment promotes easy digestion when given in moderate quantities, but used in excess produces the opposite effects. The gastric juice – so important to the digestive system – is little else than hydrocloric acid, which is derived from the radical salt. Salt increases the quantity of milk as well as the quality – it accelerates the growth of sheep and their wool, rendering the staple considerably finer and the mutton sweeter – the flesh of cattle accustomed to salt is better flavored, more nutritious and easier digested than is the meat from those receiving none of this wholesome condiment. On all runs or enclosures having retentive subsoil and damp surface a little rock salt will improve the condition of stock ten per cent., and be the means of saving five per cent, from the bills of mortality. Horses are as fond of salt as sheep or cattle, its use becomes soon apparent by the gloss of their skins, and is much safer than arsenic – which is in England given for this purpose. No stalled cattle are fattened in Britain without a piece of rock salt in their troughs or in their steamed food – but, in conclusion, in

reference to salt, it must not be given throughout the year. In spring, when the young verdure decks the fields and plains, salt should not be given at all, but when the food becomes dry, less nourishing and harder of digestion, salt may be properly administered, and then will its action be found to best advantage. During the winter months see that you have plenty of succulent oats for milch cows – this increases the quantity of milk, but not the quality, and when on this subject it is curious that the large breeds of cows give very large quantities of poor watery milk – that the milk in spring is supposed to be the best for drinking, and this makes it best for calves – in summer it is best suited for cheese, and in autumn for butter – cows less frequently milked give richer milk, and consequently more butter – the morning milk is richer than that of the evening, and the last drawn milk of each milking at all times and seasons is richer than the first drawn. Small breeds of cows give less milk, but it is of richer quality. Continue to sow winter wheat in dry weather, two bushels to the acre. To prevent smut, steep the seed for ten or twelve hours in a solution of one pound of bluestone or sulphate of copper to seven gallons of water, which is an effectual cure. Pigs intended for bacon may now be killed. See that young pigs are well littered with straw or fern – give them plenty of food, such as potatoes, carrots, turnips and refuse from the garden. Open drains while the ground is soft, the water will show the level. Sow oats on fern land which has lain fallow, two bushels of seed to one hundredweight of guano per acre – harrow once before sowing, and then harrow in the guano with the seed – pass the roller over when it is about three inches high – if skinless oats are used, one bushel per acre will do. Turn cattle into bush land grass where it is too rank. Hedges may be cut any time during this and next two months – furze hedges are getting common, but they are bad and ought not to be encouraged.

OPERATIONS FOR JULY.

JULY.

THE CLIMATE OF NEW ZEALAND FOR JULY.

THE CLIMATE OF NEW ZEALAND FOR JULY.

THIS is generally the severest month in the year, continuous cold, sloppy weather. Cattle will require more than ordinary attention – there is very little strength in the grass. Now is the time for indoor work – have everything put into repair. See that the water courses are clear – allow no water to lodge on newly sown ground, and as a general rule never work land during wet weather – it is more profitable to keep the horses in the stable and let the land alone. When the weather will permit, new land may be ploughed the first time. Keep your heavy stock on high land, and see them daily. Cows calving will require attention, keep them in during cold wet nights, and give hay and green oats. Sheep must now be watched and also kept on high ground, give them hay and turnips in an open shed, and let them have some rock-salt to lick, it prevents disease – as they lamb, remove them to better feed near the homestead, and frequently examine them, and tag those that require it – pare their feet now and until the walk gets dry and hard.

The fly, that great pest, never troubles sheep in this country. Give horses dry food and keep them dry to preserve their good condition. Cart manure, make a heap and cover it over with mould, to be ready for spring potato planting or anything else. Towards the end of this month in light dry soil, plant a few early potatoes, in drills twenty inches apart and ten inches between the sets – cover them three inches deep, and when they are about four inches high earth them up. Finish sowing oats on fern land this month, and commence clearing bush land to burn off in the autumn. In clean dry land sow oats and barley, two to three bushels to the acre – sow also winter wheat on good land, two bushels to the acre. Sowing at this time allows the young plants to get ahead of small weeds, but if the land is very wet, it will be better to put off sowing winter wheat, and put in spring wheat the following month. The advantages of sowing these crops early is to harvest them before the caterpillars make their appearance, for they will sometimes destroy a field of twenty acres in three or four days – they eat the single seed stalks of oats, and the grain falls to the ground, and the barley below the head in the small parts of the straw, and soon the ground is covered with heads. The arable farmer will have to turn his attention to manure, the value of which depends on the ingredients it contains – the mechanical effect it may have on the soil, and its absorbing power – for instance, gypsum is an excellent manure for all leguminous plants, as clover, pease, &c, and is only found in very minute quantities in the grain crops, but by its power of absorbing ammonia from the atmosphere it becomes a valuable addition to the soil, and even for cereal crops. The bulky organic manures, such as farm yard manure, besides containing all the chemical ingredients in small quantities necessary for the growth of plants, effect in clay soils a great mechanical

improvement by increasing its porosity, giving access to the air and water – promoting decomposition, and enabling the clay to absorb the ammonia, and supply it to the roots as required – but with regard to the kind of manure it will depend upon which is easiest procured, for if the farmer is situated near a town, or where weighty manures containing large quantities of water are plentiful, that may be the cheapest food the farmer can procure for his crops – but if he has to cart it for a long distance, he will find it better to purchase some concentrated manure that can be easily transported to his farm. One thing we have hinted al two or three times, make as much manure as possible on the farm, for this is the very essence of good farming. Keep the stock in good condition, feed and bed them well, and keep them clean, and save all the manure both liquid and solid – for all special manures may assist, but cannot supersede this – the richer the food you give to the animals, the richer will be the manure – for it is said of food generally that about one third to one fourth of the money value, and seven eighths of the valuable matter appear in the manures made on the farm, which is in the two valuable ingredients, ammonia and phosphoric acid, and that of sheep especially. Farm yard manure is called general manure, because it contains ammonia for the cereal crops and phosphoric acid for the root crops, and also the other necessary matters, as potash, soda, &c. In this mild climate it is not necessary to house ordinary cattle – they generally have hay or some other additional food, besides the grass supplied to them during three or four months (June, July, August and part of September), in some sheltered situation, or where there is a bush to run into. If the New Zealand farmer crops much and wishes to improve his land, or even to keep up its fertility, he must make use of manures, and as a matter of course if

he has far to cart it he will find it to his advantage to purchase some of the concentrated manures. Peruvian guano, if genuine, is a very powerful manure – its color, if good, is that of coffee with milk, if grey, it is earthy, and if brown, it is wet, a strong, piquant, caustic flavor shows ammoniacal salts, the smell like ammonia, touch oily, the small grains when broken, shining and chrystallized, these are good signs – but if these small grains are stones or gravel, it is bad – a bushel of guano should weigh 68 to 70 pounds. Bone dust as manufactured in this Colony is an excellent manure for root crops and pastures, and answers well on active volcanic soils. In bones we find about two thirds of its weight consist of mineral salts, the remainder being animal matter of the same description as that composing skin, gristle, &c, called gelatine, with varying quantities of fat. The value of bones as a manure chiefly depends on the gelatine and the phosphoric acid they contain, the former substance in common with all animal matter, except fat, by decay in the soil yields ammonia – while the phosphoric acid, combined with lime and magnesia, under the same treatment, is slowly dissolved by the moisture of the soil and conveyed into the organism of the plant – there to perform the important function allotted to it. Gypsum, plaster of Paris or sulphate of lime, is a powerful manure for all leguminous plants, as clover, pease, &c, a valuable property of gypsum is its fixing ammonia. Lime in itself is not a manure, affords no nourishment for the growth of plants, but only conduces to the fertility of the soil by the manner in which it acts upon its constituent parts. The various substances in the soil necessary for the growth of plants, whether organic or inorganic, are by the action of the lime set free and brought into a state of solution adapted for being absorbed by the roots of plants. The action of lime on old tilled soils is

more observable when applied soon after the use of the ordinary manures. It is frequently the case to find farmers applying lime in copious dressings of from 100 to 150 bushels per acre, and to make matters even worse, in actual conjunction with the manure. Now the effect of this copious application is at once to liberate in the soil a far larger quantity of the volatile salts and substances than are absolutely required for the growing crop, however strong and luxuriant. The surplus, remaining in a state of solution, is either carried away by the excess of rain water passing from the soil, or evaporated in the atmosphere. A smaller dressing more frequently repeated, say 10 to 15 bushels per acre every two or three years, would have all the effect necessary and at the same time save this ruinous waste. The commonest application of the knowledge of its chemical effects would lead any one to hesitate in adopting the too common error of using lime in actual conjunction with, manure of any kind, particularly such as guano, as so near an approach would entirely deprive the manure of its ammoniacal properties.

Lime must be applied near to the surface, hence it is generally harrowed in on naked fallows at home, previous to turning over the last or seed furrow – which is a light one. On heavy clay soils lime is also valuable for its disintegrating properties, causing such soils to fall or become pulverised with greater ease, while sandy or light soils become consolidated and made firmer by its application. On soils of this latter description a smaller quantity of lime is used than on clays. Its effects are more observable upon the grass than on any other crop in the rotation, but applied immediately to potatoes, its effects are rather injurious than otherwise. How or when applied, it should be at some little interval before or after the application of manure, and in dry weather only. Upon

soils of a peaty nature and those – as many of them in this Province do – containing much fibrous matter, lime will act most beneficially, counteracting the acidity and astringent properties these Soils contain, rendering them firmer by its action, decomposing the inert vegetable matter, and converting it into substances more assimilated to the requirements of vegetation. Upon clay soils its beneficial effects will be very great, but in all cases – for the reasons stated above – small doses frequently repeated are more economical in their use than larger ones repeated at longer intervals. A compost of lime and earth for grass land is a better top-dressing than either of them would be separately, the proportion should be one fourth of lime. A useful manure for some soils is also to be made by mixing line and common salt, in the proportion of three of lime to one of salt – these are mixed together and heaped up in a covered shed some three months previous to use. The use of lime in the formation of composts cannot be too much urged – in many parts of the Province, more especially on farms bordering upon salt water creeks, there is an almost inexhaustible source of manure to the farmer. If the mud and slime were removed at low water, carted into large heaps, and when dry mixed with lime in the proportion of one of lime to ten of mud, a very valuable compost would be obtained. The effect of this compound upon wheat has been attended with the most satisfactory results, both in thickness of the crop upon the ground, and the increased size of the ear. It is a common saying among farmers at home, "Muck goes to straw, lime to corn." Weeds, green rubbish, in fact all refuse about a place should be carefully gathered, thrown into a pit dug for the purpose, and occasionally sprinkled with lime. This will be found a valuable manure on small holdings – by attention to these particulars the Chinese have raised their soils to a high state of fertility.

OPERATIONS FOR AUGUST.

AUGUST.

THE CLIMATE OF NEW ZEALAND FOR AUGUST.

THE CLIMATE OF NEW ZEALAND FOR AUGUST.

ABOUT the middle of this month the crocus and peach blossoms make their appearance, the buds fill and nature begins to show life again, but the weather is changeable, and it is a trying time for stock, more particularly in open exposed situations, they require more attention now than at any other time during the winter; the weather is wet, and there is little nourishment in the over succulent young grass, it is apt to scour them. See that the horses are kept in condition, as the working season is coming on – give them hay, corn, carrots and green oats – it will keep them in healthy working order. Store Cattle, but more particularly late calves, fall off about this time – give them a little hay, and house them every night to keep them comfortable. The cows will be coming in – give them plenty of green food till the grass starts – do not let them fall off in milk now, because next month they will be able to take care of themselves. Put in cuttings of thorns in nursery lines, to be planted in hedges the following autumn. Spring wheat

may be sown on good, soil after twice ploughing, and any land laid down before, and not doing well, should now be broken up for oats or potatoes, as there is no crop so good for cleaning land as potatoes – first work it well and give a little manure. Grass generally takes well after a crop of this sort – sow it down with a little guano and rape. About the middle or towards the end of this month the main crop of potatoes may be planted, if the land is in good tilth, but if the soil is strong and resting on a retentive clay, September will be soon enough for early crops. We prefer moderate sized potatoes cut in pieces with at least two eyes in each set – many now however prefer the largest well formed potatoes, cut to one eye only – some also use whole sets, but too many tubers are formed, and they are never properly developed. The soils best adapted for the cultivation of the potato are those of a light, sandy, drained, peaty or loamy nature. The potato thrives best in fresh soils, newly broken up meadows, old bush lands, or the sites of old yards or buildings – it does not do well on wet clay soil, although large crops have been grown here on peaty soils, the potatoes are always watery, and many of them hollow – fine crops have been grown on broken up grass lands, but the potatoes are never so good as when grown on new lands. All decomposing organic matter evolves carbonic acid gas and ammonia, which has a very invigorating effect on young plants, increasing the branches and leaves, and this of course increases the means of obtaining food from the atmosphere – hence the great crops of potatoes grown from broken up meadow lands – but planting the potato under the green sod requires careful management – the grass should be eaten down close with sheep before the land is ploughed – use the wheel coulter and harrow as soon as possible, to prevent the grass and weeds from coming up between the furrows, and also

harrow frequently till the plant is above ground. It has been found that cut potatoes rot more frequently under the green turf than in a well wrought, loose soil – of course, all decaying matters have a tendency to impart the same action to other substances in contact with them, and the decomposing matter in the sward is more likely to communicate the action of decay to a cut potato than to a whole one, and more so if the soil is stiff, as the plant will be a fortnight longer in making its way through the close furrow. In all stiff, strong soils, you must first well pulverise, then set the potatoes in drills, keeping them clean and well moulded up – and remember that better crops are produced when the potatoes are six inches deep than when they are set three inches only, as those near the surface are frequently destroyed by the worm, while those five or six inches deep are free from this pest – well pulverised soils give less chance for the moth to deposit her eggs near the potato. The best manure for the potato is common farm yard compost partially decomposed, also decayed leaves, sea weed and any other organic matters, which, while affording nutriment, have a tendency to make the soil light and facilitate the extension of the roots – lime is not good, but pond mud or ditch scrapings, with each cubic yard of which a month previously a bushel of refuse common salt has been mixed, is excellent. As many cows calve about this time, for those engaged in dairy management we may add a few useful remarks to what we have said in June. In milking cows observe regularity, gentleness and cleanliness – always wash the udder with a little cold water before milking – have the hands clean – milk the cow dry and without interruption, as a little milk left in the udder would ruin the cow. If the cow has sore teats, use milk warm water instead of cold – treat her kindly and milk quickly, there must be no trifling. In sitting down to milk, do not be

afraid – speak to the cow, and sit down, resting your hand on her side – if she has sore teats she will lift her leg, slip your arm down and let it go with the leg, and she cannot hurt you – dip the points of your fingers in the milk, and with the two fingers and thumb grasp the tit near its extremity, pressing well up into the udder at each stroke, using both hands at the same time. The milk dishes must be kept thoroughly clean – the milk house or dairy kept free from smoke, well aired and clean – have no potatoes, fish, onions, cheese, or anything likely to impart a strong smell in your dairy, as the milk soon takes the taste of it. When the milk is brought in from the cows, strain it through a fine hair or flannel covered sieve or drainer, and put it into the milk pans. A tin skimmer with holes in it is best for taking off the cream. The churn, whether plunge or barrel, should be carefully washed, dried and aired immediately after churning. The butter, on being taken from the churn, should at once be put into fresh spring water, where it should remain one hour at least, to make it firm, and then it should be salted.

Cattle ponds may be made successfully in dry, rocky pastures, by choosing a low situation for the purpose – then excavating 10 or 20 yards across, and spread over the whole a layer of refuse slacked lime and coal cinders – then spread, trample, and ram down a stratum of well trampled clay, about four inches thick, and upon this spread a second bed of clay, in a similar manner, of the same thickness. The whole of the bottom and edges must be paved with rubble stone, and small stones several inches deep spread upon the pavement. Trees look beautiful round ponds, and they are useful in shading the water from the sun, but the leaves fall into the water, and by their decay render it unwholesome for cattle to drink. – Australian Farmer.

OPERATIONS FOR SEPTEMBER.

SEPTEMBER.

THE CLIMATE OF NEW ZEALAND FOR SEPTEMBER.

THE CLIMATE OF NEW ZEALAND FOR SEPTEMBER.

DURING this month we have generally some fine showers, which warm the earth and draw up vegetation – the weather is getting mild and the days lengthen. The first work of the month is to put in the main crop of potatoes – if in fallowed land, harrow well, and roll to level the ground before planting – then plant the potatoes behind the plough in every third furrow, along with guano, two hundred weight to the acre – harrow them lightly, and when about six inches high mould them up. Or another plan is to plough the land and let it lay for two weeks – plough again and roll and harrow, then with a double mould plough draw drills two and a half feet apart – put manure in the drills either above or below the potato. As we said before, some prefer large potatoes cut to small ones whole – they say it yields more weight per acre. After planting, split the furrows to cover the potato, and about two weeks after, harrow the drills. Potatoes on new fern land are not recommended. About the end of the month sow maize in holes

four feet apart each way, about an inch and a half deep and eight inches in diameter – put in five or six seeds, then cover and firm them – when about eight inches high, pull up the weakest plants, but leave three of the strongest in each hole – draw the earth well round them. Those pulled up will do for the cows or pigs. Where hay is required, turn out the cattle and close the paddocks about the beginning of the month, but if good grass seed is wanted, the closing of the paddocks may be deferred till the beginning of next month; the crop of hay will of course be lighter, but the seed will be much better. Sow oats for hay, three or four bushels per acre – thick sowing makes the best hay – if grass and clover seeds are to be sown among the crop, two bushels of oats will be enough. The New Zealand farmer often complains that his grass crop proves a failure – this will happen if it is a heavy one, for the grass and clover will be weak, and some destroyed – at harvest the crop is removed, and these young plants exposed to a scorching sun – in some seasons for weeks – and withered up. On the other hand, if the crop is thin, the grass and clover being more exposed to the sun and air, will be healthier, stronger and less liable to be injured by the sun after the grain crop is removed. As food for sheep, in the latter part of summer sow in well pulverized and manured land Swedes and rape, also mangold wurtzel. Sow field pease either broadcast or in drills two feet apart, two and a half bushels to the acre: Peas and beans do best on a limestone bottom. Sow spring vetches thick, as they will clean the ground. Finish sowing grass, and if any of the autumn sown has failed, add a little more seed, then bush harrow and roll – a little guano, say one hundredweight per acre, would not do much harm. Milch cows now come in plentifully, and many have wisely turned their attention to cheese making, and some of our farmers are already famous. Milk as an article of diet –

either in its natural state or in the form of butter or cheese – being so wholesome and palatable, it follows as a matter of course that its production must be profitable. Many plans are followed at home to make the cows give large quantities of milk, but in this country for some time to come the quality will be of more consequence. Butter is made either from cream only, or by churning the whole milk and cream together, but the best quality is obtained from the cream which rises during the first twelve hours after milking, and the next best by churning the whole milk – in the former case the new milk, after being carefully strained, is poured into shallow vessels of glazed earthenware, tinned iron, wood, lead or zinc, of which the three first named sorts are the best. The wooden vessels, from the difficulty of cleaning them, are objectionable – the lead and zinc, from the noxious salt which is produced by the action of the milk on the metal. Cows should never be flurried or driven fast before being milked, but should be milked as fast as possible, and the milk at once taken to the dairy. The process of milking we have already described. The yearning or rennet is the skin of the stomach of a sucking calf – it is salted and kept about twelve months – then a square inch to about ten gallons of milk is put the day before it is required into a cup containing half a pint of lukewarm water, and a teaspoonful of salt, and this is the mixture that curdles or coagulates the milk. With regard to the cheese, the different sorts have all admirers, but the best English cheeses are Stilton, Cheddar, Cheshire, and Gloster. The Stilton is made from the cream of one milking added to the new milk of the next. The Cheddar and Cheshire are made from new milk, or rather from milk in which all its own cream is retained. The difference between double and single is that the double is twice as thick as the single, and takes longer to

ripen. The Scottish Dunlop and the Gouda are full milk cheeses. We will now describe the process of manufacture. Dunlop cheese is thus made – say at six o'clock morning and evening – the steeping tub in which the milk is coagulated is set in its place, the frame and sieve are laid across, and the milk as brought in from the cows is strained to free it from the hairs and motes – when all the milk is strained, the froth on the top is skimmed off, and again put through the sieve until it has all disappeared – the rennet is then added and mixed by stirring with the skimming dish, then left alone to coagulate – a cloth is now thrown over the tub to prevent too rapid cooling and to keep out dust. On Sundays this process is modified – the milk is stored in coolers in the milk house until Monday morning, when it is skimmed – the cream put into the steeping tub, and the skimmed milk into the boiler to warm – when the temperature of the latter is raised to a little above the heat of new drawn milk, it is emptied from the boiler into the steeping tub amongst the cream, and along with the Monday's new drawn milk – it is then set with the rennet and treated exactly as above described. The quantity of rennet is regulated best by practice – as much as will coagulate the milk in about fifteen minutes. When the curd gets cold and firm, cut it across from top to bottom with a long knife, into pieces of about two inches square, and after a few minutes it is more minutely broken with the hand – the curd is then allowed to settle, when the whole is carefully pressed and the whey separated from the curd, which goes to the bottom of the tub – the whey is now passed through the sieve to save all the curd, and it is then cut into pieces of four or five inches, and again gently pressed for a little with the hand until it attains the proper firmness, and then put into a dreeper. The time taken up from the coagulation until the curd is put into the dreeper,

with the resting or settling intervals, will be about an hour, and the mean temperature of the curd when put into the dreeper abut 79 degrees. To effect the discharge of the whey and make it ready for making up into cheese, it will require eight cuttings and changings – when the milk is steeped at night, the curd, after receiving three or four cuttings, is left in the dreeper until morning, and at an early hour the process is resumed, but the time occupied with and between the cuttings and changings is usually about two hours – if the rennet be added by half past seven, the curd should be ready for making up into a cheese by twelve or one o'clock. Now for the curing of the curd – a little salt is sprinkled on it when left in the dreeper at night, and the same in the forenoon if the weather be sultry, but the salting and curing is always completed with the last cutting or breaking of the curd, and it is proper here to mention that curd left over is now added, being first warmed before the fire. The salt should be in the proportion of one ounce to three pounds of curd; when the salt is added and well intermixed, a clean cloth wrung out of warm water, to prevent the curd adhering, is placed inside the cheese vat, and the reduced curd firmly pressed into it with the dairymaid's hands, and rounded on the top, over which the ends of the cloth are lapped and fastened in to the edges of the vat, the lid or sinker being adjusted on the top. It is now ready for the press – but before doing so, place it near the fire for about two hours, turning it carefully until it is warm all round, with no other pressure at first on it but its own lid, and afterwards a light weight of twenty or thirty pounds: – the vat is then placed in the press, and pressure gradually applied. If put in the press the afternoon before the cows are brought in for milking, the young cheese should be ready for changing when the milking is over, or about two hours after being

put to press – this changing consists in removing the wet cloth and applying a clean dry one, reversing the cheese in the vat, and again putting it under the press – before bed time the second changing is given, and early the next morning it receives another dry cloth – it is again changed at ten o'clock and at two o'clock, and if it has taken on a uniform yellow color, and has an elastic feel to the touch, it will be ready in the afternoon to be taken from the press – although some prefer to leave it twelve or even twenty-four hours longer – if the cheese is large, this may be necessary. In some dairies, before final removal from the press, the cheese is put under pressure with a cloth wrung out of hot water, to give toughness to the skin, and afterwards put into a spare vat for half an hour or so, with a slight pressure on to smoothe the surface, it is then removed to the cheese room and turned daily for ten or fourteen days, and at longer intervals as they become firm and dry. The approved method of making Cheshire cheese is – after the rennet is added to the milk, and when the curd is firm enough to discharge its whey, plunge the hands to the bottom of the vessel, and with a wooden spoon stir the curd and whey, and then carefully break to the size at least of a hazelnut all the curd – then, after it settles, take the dish and lade off the whey into a milk dish to stand for cream, to be churned for what is called whey butter – but this is peculiar only to some districts – having laded off the whey, you spread the straining cloth and strain the curd through it, returning the curd from the cloth into the cheese tub. When you have got all the whey squeezed out by the hand and lading dish, you cut it into small square pieces, this lets out a little more whey and makes the curd handy to be broken into the vats. Now take a vat of the proper size and spread the cheese cloth losely over it, then re-break the curd carefully, sqeezing every part of it by the hands,

then fill the vat heaped up, rounded above its top, fold the cloth over it, put it into the press, and apply the pressure. During the first day the cheese is in the press, skewers are thrust through the holes in the sides of the vat. After it has been in the press for two or three hours, the cheese is taken out and put into a vessel containing hot whey, and allowed to stand an hour or two to harden its skin – then removed, wiped dry, allowed to cool, and covered with a clean cloth – the vat is now wiped dry and the cheese replaced and put in the press again. In the evening, supposing the cheese to have been made in the morning, it is again taken out, another dry cloth applied, then turned and replaced – -it is thus taken out, wrapped in a clean cloth, turned twice a day for two days, and finally removed and taken to the salting apartment, and put (being still in the vat) into a tub filled with brine, in which it is to stand for several days, being regularly turned at least once a day. The vat, with the cheese still in it, is then removed from the brine tub, and the cheese is taken out and placed on the salting bench, where it is to remain for eight or ten days, salt being carefully rubbed over the whole cheese every day during that period. H the cheese is very large, to prevent its breaking with so much handling, a wooden hoop or a cloth band is put round it. The cheese is now washed in warm water or whey, and when well dried with a cloth, it is placed on the drying bench, where it also remains eight or ten days, then removed to the cheese room, where it is to be turned every day, twice a day, or every two days, according to the state of the weather – if the air is cold and dry, the windows and doors of the cheese room are kept shut as much as possible, but if close and moist, as much fresh air as possible should be admitted. After ten days or so the cheese is washed and scraped. We might describe the manufacture of several other varieties of

cheese, but perhaps we have said enough for this time. As this is the month for sowing tobacco seed, we may as well describe the whole process. For a quarter of an acre have four boxes about two feet square and twelve inches deep, fill them to within an inch of the top with light rich sandy loam, and make the surface smooth and level, then take a little seed between the finger and thumb and sprinkle it evenly over the surface – the seeds are so small that about the eighth of an ounce will grow a sufficient quantity of plants for an acre. After sowing the seed, sift some fine earth over the top until the seed is covered to a depth of nearly a quarter of an inch – place the boxes in a warm, sheltered situation, and water them with a watering pot, and the watering must be continued at intervals to keep the soil moist in the boxes. If the plants appear too close or thick in the boxes, you must thin them out to about an inch apart. When the leaves of the young plants have attained the size of a half-crown they are ready for transplanting. The land intended for the plantation should be rich, deep worked and well pulverized – the plants should be three to four feet apart each way, to enable the grower to move about amongst them without touching the leaves, for when growing they are very tender, and the planting performed either in the morning or in the evening. Water the plants well before removing them from the boxes, then with a sharp pointed trowel proceed to take up the plants singly into a shallow box or tin dish, leaving a little soil on the roots of each – the line being set and the ground marked at a given distance, with the trowel make holes large enough to receive the plants, and set them in carefully so as not to remove the soil that was taken up with the roots – use the trowel to smooth and level the surface round the stem of each plant; this done, the plants must be well watered and shaded, and in about four days

the roots will be sufficiently established to remove the shades – and the plants that have missed are to be replaced from those remaining in the boxes. The principal trouble now will be to keep the ground loose by stirring among the plants, and keeping them free from slugs and caterpillars. The leaf at this time is very tender, and these insects attack and devour the leaves, or cut the stem just below the ground. A little hot lime dusted round the plants in the evening will settle the slugs, but the caterpillars must be hand picked daily, for they very soon spoil a number of leaves. To produce a fine sample of tobacco, six leaves only should be allowed to grow on each plant, and when you have got this number, pinch back the leading shoot to increase the bulk, &c, by preventing other leaves forming. When the blossoms appear, top the plant and remove all side shoots. We say six leaves, but some parties grow eight, ten, or even twelve – when only six leaves are allowed to grow, they will be large, whereas when ten or twelve are left, the lowest ones will begin to wither before the upper ones are full grown. The time for gathering the leaves is when they get yellow and spotted – cut them down immediately under the lower leaf, and lay them carefully in small heaps until they are slightly withered.. After the first cutting, young shoots will sprout from the old stem, which must receive the same treatment as the first lot, and if the ground is good and the season favorable, you will have a third crop. When the plants are carried from the field, they are tied in pairs by the butt ends, and hung across light poles among the rafters, arranged to hold as many as possible. When it is drying, the tobacco should be sheltered from the sun and from rain, and should have free circulation of air among the leaves. When the leaves are sufficiently dried, that is when they become yellow all over, and the leaf-stalk dry and withered, strip them from the stems and tie them in

small bundles – the best time to strip them is before sunrise, when they are moist, and will not crumble in handling – then take as many as you can conveniently hold between the forefinger and thumb, twist a small leaf round each lot, and lay them in small stacks to make the leaves heat. When the centre of the stack feels decidedly warm to the hand, open the heap and let the air in until the bundles are quite cool and dry, but if not sufficiently heated you must stack them again, and after a final airing the bundles are tied into small bales, and packed in boxes or casks for market. The best variety for manufacturing purposes is the Virginia.

Root crops, as Swedes, turnips, mangolds, carrots, &c, are cultivated solely for their roots, or rather bulbs. The habit of these plants is to gather from the soil, during the earlier stages of their growth, a larger quantity of nourishing materials than they require for present use. This extra quantity of food they store up and accumulate in their bulbs, and it is afterwards disposed of in maturing the seeds, during the latter period of their development. Thus we learn that during one period of the growth of these plants the bulbs continue to increase in size, and to become richer in feeding materials up to a certain period, when a change in the reverse direction takes place, and the bulb is called upon to supply materials for the sustenance of the other organs of the plant. Hence we see the necessity of gathering the roots or bulbs when fully matured, in order to obtain the maximum quantity of feeding materials. If we leave them longer, the amount of woody substance in the root increases, and the root becomes less nourishing; and when the plants are allowed to perfect their seeds, the bulbs are found after the operation to consist chiefly of woody matter. – Voelcker's Agricultural Chemistry.

OPERATIONS FOR OCTOBER.

OCTOBER.

THE CLIMATE OF NEW ZEALAND FOR OCTOBER.

THE CLIMATE OF NEW ZEALAND FOR OCTOBER.

THE mild, spring weather of this month gives plenty of work to the farmer. The principal crops – both spring and summer – should now be in the ground. Potatoes may still be planted in low damp situations – if the season turns out a dry one there will not be a large crop, but they will do well for seed. Grass on clay soils frequently succeeds better when sown in spring than in autumn, for the cricket and the wet winter destroy many of the young plants, and beginners will find a few tons of oaten hay valuable in winter for working horses, oxen and cows, therefore, if required for hay, sow a few oats now. It was recommended in April to sow oats thick on foul land for a rotting crop. Now is the time to work the land well – use the roller, get it fine, and sow two bushels of maize per acre, then give it a light ploughing to cover the seed, harrow in the grass seed and roll down, but don't stock the crop until February, when the green maize will be fine feed for horses or cattle. Cabbages are very nutritious, and farmers and dairymen would find a few

acres of drumhead very useful in the summer months; they deserve to be more extensively cultivated as a fodder crop, they are richer in oil and nitrogenous matter than many other kinds of green food. Cabbages are most valuable as food for milch cows, they increase the quantity and improve the quality of the milk, and the butter made from it is free from any unpleasant flavor. Land intended for fallow should now be ploughed up, before sorrel and other weeds begin to seed, and before the ground gets hard and dry. Root up the docks as they show themselves, collect them into heaps, and when they are dry burn them. Cutting docks below the crown in summer will very often kill them, but whatever you do, prevent them from seeding. Sheep will sometimes nibble and kill them in dry summer weather. Hand or horse hoe the potatoes as soon as the drills can be seen. Sheep in paddocks should be shifted once a fortnight, to allow the grass to start. The shearing will begin at the end of this month. Keep the rams in a small paddock by themselves; examine the flock every fortnight; see to their feet, and tag any that may require it. Cows will have plenty of grass and winter oats – store stock can now find enough for themselves. See that pigs have plenty of food, attend to the young litters, give them a dry bed and a little milk, and keep the sow in condition. Plant maize for a crop, in rows five feet apart and two feet six inches from hill to hill, five seeds to each hill, and when they come up remove two for green food. Keep the land clean with the hoe, and earth the plants well up, first when they are about a foot high, and again when about two feet six inches. Maize is a very nutritious grain, and succeeds well in the Province of Auckland', but as it is not generally fit for harvesting till the autumn rains set in, there is a difficulty in getting it dry. New beginners on bush lands should grow some maize by planting among stumps, for their pigs, poultry, and

horses. The relative value of horses and oxen we may notice now, as this is the working season. Oxen are preferred by new beginners, as they live cheaper than horses, but where grass is plentiful and there is much ploughing to do, horses will be found more economical – for horses are capable of performing all kinds of farm labor, and they adapt themselves to every road and every degree of temperature – there is no occasion to select their particular kind of labor, as they may be employed in any work – be attached to any vehicle or employment on the farm – horses work more expeditiously as well as continuously, thus keeping those who labor with them more fully employed than is the case in working with oxen. Oxen are better than horses for ploughing, and are not so expensive to keep, the first cost being far below that of the horse, their harness less costly, their food cheaper, and oxen, when well fed and not overworked, will increase in value, thus almost paying interest on their original cost, they are less liable to accidents and diseases, and produce a greater amount of manure than horses – horses decrease in value, and unless you finally eat them (turn hippophagi), they will become a dead loss. When on this subject, we may as well give a few hints on the art of driving or managing horses. Keep always to the left or near side, except when passing another vehicle, which you do on the right or off side – do not turn sharply round corners, and give a full sweep to allow room for any other conveyance coming in an opposite direction. When you pull up or turn round, intimate your intention by holding up your hand or whip – this will give notice to those behind you of your intention. When going down hill, hold the reins tightly, this will support the horse and prevent its stumbling – when going up hill, the reins may be held slacker, but at all times keep them firm in the hand, to be able to check the horse the instant he stumbles. Spare

the whip, do not tug capriciously at the reins, or force the horse faster than his natural pace – this will spoil his temper, harden his mouth to the bit, and make him callous and indifferent to your commands. Avoid trotting or galloping a cart horse. When a horse has the habit of shying, draw him gently aside from any startling object as you approach it, and hold the whip on the shady and not the sunny side of his body. If a shoe gets loose or comes off, have it rectified at once if possible. If a horse runs away, do not abandon all control over him, but try to guide him as if he were going at an ordinary pace, for the horse, if firmly but gently managed, will yield mechanically to the rein, and thus danger may be avoided. Let your general treatment be gentle and kind, stroke his neck occasionally with the whip, pat his back, and now and then call him by his name – for remember that Rarey's great horse taming secret was kind firm treatment.

Wheat thrives best on land naturally rich in mineral fertilizing materials, and requiring only working and tilling to yield these materials to plants. On soils of this description – and to a less extent on lighter land – ammoniacal manures are found greatly to favor the growth of wheat. These manures supply the nitrogen requisite for the formation of the gluten of the grain, and at the same time stimulate the plants to seek a proportionate quantity of the other kinds of material the plants require. – Voelcker's Agricultural Chemistry.

OPERATIONS FOR NOVEMBER

NOVEMBER.

THE CLIMATE OF NEW ZEALAND FOR NOVEMBER.

THE CLIMATE OF NEW ZEALAND FOR NOVEMBER.

WE have now fine clear summer weather and plenty of work, keeping down weeds, and getting the general crops of the season finished – remember that when weeds are allowed to grow among crops, they deprive them of a portion of the nutriment required. Hoe the ground well between the drills of potatoes, Swedes, mangolds, &c, to keep down weeds and finely pulverize the soil – this will facilitate the absorption of aqueous vapour from the atmosphere, which is always more plentiful in hot weather than in cool, and without which no commonly cultivated plant could flourish, and few exist at all. Providence has therefore ordained that this should be ever ready to meet the demands of vegetable life, and that its quantity should vary with the temperature – for the closer and warmer the atmosphere, the more moisture, and the cooler the air the drier it is. The cultivator will derive many advantages from a careful investigation of the support yielded by the vapours of the atmosphere to his plants; he will also per-

ceive that its unvaried presence affords an additional reason why the air should be allowed to circulate freely through the well pulverised and loosened soil to the roots of all growing crops. The watery vapour varies in amount, but is never absent from the atmosphere. Never be frightened, as some of our farmers are, to let out the moisture by stirring the soil well and often. English farmers have now found out this fact, and the horse hoe of the east and south of England – in the driest days of summer – may be seen at work in the large sandy turnip fields of Norfolk and Suffolk, not merely to destroy weeds, but to increase the circulation of the gases and vapours of the air. The crops being now all in, pay great attention to keep down weeds. Continue to plough foul or new land for a clean fallow, for now is the time to do this, as vegetation continues active all the winter, except you wish to grow rotting crops of oats, turnips, &c. Sow sorgum early this month, on good land previously broken up, in drills two feet apart, and when they come up, thin out to eighteen inches in the row. No insect will touch this crop, and it may be cut two or three times in a season, it is valuable food for horses and pigs, more nourishing than green maize, and would pay well for dairy feeding, both as food and manure. Sow white Belgian carrots early this month, in well prepared ground, eighteen inches between the rows, and afterwards thin them out to four or six inches in the row. Give sucking calves plenty of milk, and see that mares with their foals, cows in full milk, and pigs intended for bacon, have plenty of good food. Now is the time to cart scoria, or any other heavy material required for draining, fencing, &c. See that this is done in dry weather. Under-draining must not be neglected – it is the principal part of good, healthy, successful farming – making the ground we tread upon drier, and the atmosphere we breathe healthier,

it prevents drought in the ground, and furnishes an increased supply of atmospheric fertilizers, warms the lower portions of the soil, hastens the decomposition of roots and other organic matter, accelerates the disintegration of the mineral substances in the soil, causes a more even distribution of nutritious matter, where the roots traverse the soil it improves the mechanical texture of it, it enables the poisonous matter of plants to be carried out of reach of the roots, prevents grasses running out, deepens the surface soil, renders the soil kindlier in the spring, it can be worked sooner after rain, in fact well drained land is neither injured by long continued droughts nor by rains, but it is enriched by the rains that percolate freely through it, leaving the rich ingredients behind in the soil, while the best and richest parts of undrained, cold, stiff soils are washed away by heavy rains. The late Mr Weston says, "On well drained and manured land, the crops shoot up vigorously and are strong and healthy, on imperfectly or non-drained fields, crops look feeble weak and sickly, from the effects of stagnant moisture."

The Parsnip is by some considered even superior to the carrot in feeding qualities. It may be cultivated the same way as that root, giving from three to four pounds of seed to the acre, when cultivated in rows from fifteen to eighteen inches distance, according to soil. The plants should be left from nine to twelve inches apart. The after cultivation is the same as for the carrot, but as the plants are more easily recognised, their culture is more simple, while the produce is greater and quite equal to it in fattening qualities. The parsnip, though hardier than the carrot, requires the land to be as well and as deeply pulverised, or the roots will be forked. It is given to cattle in the proportion of thirty pounds weight three times a day, that is

morning, middle of day, and evening. The small ones are given whole, and the larger ones split into two or three pieces, according to size – and a perfectly lean beast has been fattened on them in three months. Pigs and poultry fatten sooner, and their flesh is more delicate than when fed on any other roots. The parsnip is a good winter food for milking cows, and the butter made from the milk of cows so fed has a fine yellow color, equal to spring made. The leaves of parsnips are more bulky than those of carrots, and should be mown before taking up the roots. These may at once be given to every description of stock, and will be eaten with avidity. Parsnips grow well after potatoes. The roots may be stored as the carrots, or dried as a substitute for hay. The seed may be obtained by planting out the best roots. – Australian Farmer.

Leguminous crops, as pease, beans, vetches, saintfoin, clover, &c, all partake of the character of the pea, which may be accepted as the type of this family of plants. The prevailing mineral constituent of these plants is lime: for this reason they are sometimes called "lime plants." As we might for this reason expect, these plants flourish most luxuriantly on lime soils, and are cultivated most successfully in limestone districts. For the same reason, the addition of lime to soils containing but little of this substance greatly favours the growth of these crops. Another mineral constituent required by these plants is sulphur: hence the addition of some combination of sulphur is generally attended with benefit to a crop of this description. A substance well fitted for this purpose is gypsum, or plaster of Paris. This compound, as already noticed, contains sulphuric acid and lime, and on this account may be regarded as a special manure for leguminous plants. – Voelcker's Agricultural Chemistry.

OPERATIONS FOR DECEMBER.

DECEMBER.

THE CLIMATE OF NEW ZEALAND FOR DECEMBER.

THE CLIMATE OF NEW ZEALAND FOR DECEMBER.

This is the haymaking month, the time for mirth and fun, with beautiful clear skies, delicious fresh breezes, warm enjoyable summer weather, and the season of all seasons that comes but once a year draws on, the Merry Christmas, and in the middle of summer, crowned with the scarlet rata and the rewarewa, abundance of rich ripe fruit in the fields and in the gardens, and being haymaking season, we may remark that the value of hay depends on many circumstances, such as the kind of herbage, the age, the making, and the state of the weather at the time. Hay made from young grasses is more nutritious than that made from grass approaching to maturity. Another point of importance is the proper time to cut for hay, this should be done when the plants are in flower, so as to obtain bulk and digestible nutritious matter. Haymaking in Britain is attended with much labour and anxiety, spreading, turning, and cocking it for several days. In New Zealand it is different, for the weather being generally dry at this season, the cut grass is

soon withered, and the swathes fit to turn the day after mowing, and turned into windrows before night; the second day it should be cocked to keep its color, and prevent it from being bleached, and if you are not prepared to stack it, make it into larger cocks about the fourth day: but remember, if the weather is at all unsettled, it is better to let it alone for a time, and watch for a better opportunity – it is far better to let it spoil standing than when cut down. Try to secure the seed from rain, and this can only be done in weather when you can cut down one day and secure it the next. Oaten hay makes excellent food for stock, when properly made, but it should be cut as soon as the milk is formed in the grain, if not before, for if left until the grain is nearly perfect, the coarse parts of the straw will contain a great proportion of indigestible woody fibre, and be refused by horses – it requires less making than grass or clover hay, and is also less liable to be injured by wet weather. New beginners should make some oaten hay as soon as possible, and this might be done by sowing some oats with the grass and clover seed even on the surface in bush land among the stumps, and if chipped in with the hoe all the better – of course among the stumps the crop will require to be hand reaped, but it will well repay the trouble if the owner has a cow or two or working bullocks. The hay of clover and artificial grasses contains more flesh forming matter, less woody fibre, and a little more bone material or ash than the meadow hay, and for hard working horses and young animals the seed hay is best, because it contains the greatest quantity of the materials for making flesh and bone. Young animals thrive best on new grasses, while full grown ones fatten quicker on old. When there are several kinds of grasses growing together, they should be mown when the greatest bulk is in flower, but it is always better to mow too soon than too late. In

warm climates lucerne is cultivated and advantageously made into hay, or used as green fodder for cows and horses. It is said that in New South Wales, on some rich lands, by mowing five times during the year, as much as ten tons of lucerne hay has been taken off one acre of land – from experience we have found that oats will produce quite as heavy a crop of hay as grass, is also easier made, and will stand more rain without injury, and does not heat and mould so readily in the stack: when the horses in Auckland were principally fed on oaten hay, it was rare to see a broken winded one. Maize is in some countries made into hay. A few years since we tried it here, but – though sufficiently dried, and put into a small stack about seven feet high – it shrank to about eighteen inches, and when carted out for manure, had the appearance of tobacco. Amongst the causes that lessen the productiveness of pasture lands the presence of stagnant water holds a prominent place – land that from imperfect drainage contains stagnant water, encourages the growth of a coarse sour species of grass deficient in every useful quality, and although the soil may contain the elements of fertility, these useless grasses will always prevail; but by draining such lands, the inferior grasses will slowly disappear and give place to a sweet wholesome herbage. Grass when first cut will retain its quality longer in swarths than if it is thrown about, but when it turns yellow under the swarths it should be turned over, but spread as little as possible. In fine weather, the more hay is tossed about the better, as you then make hay while the sun shines, but do not allow the sun to bleach out the fine qualities. The rain washes out the very substance, and even the dew at night will do as much damage as these two put together. The very best weather for making hay is when the sky is dull and cloudy.

In Britain large stacks of hay have chimneys up the centre

to let the heat escape, but here in New Zealand you must take a contrary course, for the hay is nearly always too dry before it is cut, and then it is thoroughly bleached by the strong weather, and when stacked it is little better than straw – and this we believe is the cause of so many broken winded horses in Auckland – the hay being poor in nutriment, the animal is obliged to consume a greater quantity to obtain the necessary support, and consequently overcharges the stomach; it will also cause a horse to drink too much water, and violent exercise taken afterwards will have the same effect – the horse will be permanently broken winded, with bulky food after long fasting it overgorges itself, and the full stomach pressing against the lungs impeding ordinary respiration, the very natural result will be a broken winded horse. The hay stacks should be at once thatched or covered with a tarpaulin. The plume thistle, which has spread so universally over these Colonies, is a biennial and difficult to kill during the first year, but the second year, if allowed to head up and then cut off with a hook or scythe, it will easily be killed: but prevent the seed flower from expanding and sowing itself, and you will soon gain a victory over it. After saying so much about hay, we now proceed to more general work. Mould up potatoes and maize, then cut the maize for green food as you require it. If the growing oats is attacked by caterpillars, it would be better to cut it down at once for hay. Keep the docks and other noxious weeds from seeding. Hoe and thin carrots and Swedish turnips. Hoe, thin and transplant mangolds. Plant out drumhead cabbages, hoe and mould up those planted last month, and give them plenty of room. Hoe and transplant sugar grass. Sow a little maize broadcast or in drills for autumn green food. Towards the end of this month prepare to break up new ground, if it is not too hard. Working bullocks are best for this sort of work,

they take it so steady. Try to get under the fern roots and expose them to the sun and air for a month; then drag, burn and cross plough; a good plan to clear off fern is to stock hard with cattle, and plough up again. The art of grazing is either not understood, or little attended to here. A few maxims may be useful, thus never stock pastures in spring until genial showers have warmed the earth, and the pasturage is abundant; never allow the grasses to run to seed, nor any part of a field to be eaten bare, leaving other parts to get rank and coarse. Spread the droppings, remove stagnant water and extirpate tall weeds. Adapt the stock as to breed, size, condition and number to the pasture, to secure at all times a full bite of clean fresh grown succulent herbage. In moving stock from field to field, see that the change is to better fare, never to worse. Never allow the flock to remain long in one field, but frequently shift them. And now let us add a few useful hints for all seasons. Observe, that the presence of weeds is a sure indication of the want of drainage or of slovenly farming – a weed or any plant growing where it has no business – thus a potato plant growing amongst a crop of wheat, or a turnip amongst a crop of barley, or any of the cerials amongst a crop of different species and not intended to be there, is a weed. Clear away the fern or scrub from any hidden creeks or holes where cattle may get bogged.

Be careful in selecting your seeds of all kinds. Those of Colonial growth are to be preferred, if grown by an experienced person. English seeds often do not grow, to the great loss and disappointment of the settler. Thrash out your wheat, oat and grass seed as soon as possible. The rats and mice make sad havoc amongst them if left standing long in the stack, except you fall upon some plan of erecting foundations, to prevent the vermin from getting at the grain. Keep good cats about your place, and the rats

and mice will disappear as your farm gets opened up. Plant out a few fruit trees every year, in the season, and procure good varieties from a practical nurseryman. In this climate good sorts are as easily grown as bad ones. Plant the trees at twenty-five feet apart in the garden; they will not interfere with the cropping of the ground for the first three or four years. The New Zealand settler can boast of more luxuries in the way of fruit than many gentlemen in England, as a great many of the tropical fruits grow here luxuriantly in the open air. Most kinds of stone fruit begin to bear well the fourth year after planting. Sow and plant all your crops in dry weather. Rather wait a few days than put anything in when the ground is wet. A fishing net is valuable to settlers living on rivers or near the sea, as fish are very plentiful and good on the New Zealand coast. The net should be set at high water, across the mouths of creeks and narrow inlets, and left until the tide ebbs. It may also be hauled in places where fish frequent, if the bottom be clear of rocks and the water not too deep for the net. A two-inch mesh is the best size for general use.

AGRICULTURAL ODE.

Give fools their gold and knaves their power,
Let fortune's bubbles rise and fall;
Who sow's a field, or trains a flower,
Or plants a tree, is more than all.

For he who blesses most is blessed,
And God and man shall own his worth;
Who toils to leave as his bequest
An added beauty to the earth.

As soon or late, to all that sow,
The time of harvest shall be given;
The flower shall bloom, the fruit shall grow,
If not on earth, at least in heaven!

[Miscellaneous]

FRUIT TREES ON GRASS LANDS.

HOW TO GROW FRUIT TREES ON GRASS LANDS.

WE take the following from the Handy-book on "The Best Method of Saving Seeds" (now out of print), by A. McEwin: –

In a fine climate like New Zealand, where all kinds of fruit trees that are common to Europe are so easily propagated, and of such rapid growth – they may be easily grown on pasture lands without injury to the grass, and as a source of profit to the owners from the fruit, and also ornamental and useful as a shade and shelter for sheep and cattle. Fruit is likely to command a remunerative price for a number of years in New Zealand, from the fact that orchards have not been planted to supply the increasing demand that may be expected, and there being other ways of making the fruit marketable apart from selling it green or in a ripe state. In South Australia, where fruit is now so plentiful, some of the more enterprising have erected large Jam Manufactories, which are now repaying them well for the outlay; great quantities of fruit are also dried in Australia, and will keep a length of time, is very marketable, and can be used in a variety of ways in the culinary department. When apples become plentiful they can be manufactured into cider, and pears into liquor called perry. It is a great acquisition to the settler to have plenty of fruit, as it can be used in a variety of ways in domestic cookery, and is very conducive to health when used in moderation. In planting out fruit trees on grass lands, a judicious selection is the first thing to be considered. A variety of plums, pears, apples, cherries, mulberrys, loquats, and even the orange and lemon, I think, may be introduced with success, as we find they are quite hardy enough to stand the winter, and our summer is long

enough, to ripen their fruit. In planting large tracts of grass land, forest trees may be introduced for shelter at intervals of every five or six rows; fruit trees that have been budded are preferable, as they form finer and straighter stems in a shorter space of time than those that have been grafted; they should be left standing in the nursery until they are trained six feet high, with a single stem. The training is performed by cutting off all lateral branches that make their appearance, leaving nothing but the leading shoot to grow, and repeatedly tying it up to a stake, every five or six inches of growth that it makes. When the stems have got to six feet high, and pretty strong, the trees are fit to plant out in the proper season, which is in the months of June or July. I would recommend the trees to be planted at from forty to fifty feet apart, which would always leave ample room for the sun and air to penetrate between the rows, to keep the grass in a healthy state for sheep or cattle. In planting all kinds of fruit trees, it is of the greatest consequence that they be not planted too deep. Open for each tree a circular hole or pit about five feet wide, commence by cutting the turf out in square pieces about two inches in thickness, and lay them carefully aside, then dig about three inches in depth of soil out, and lay it carefully aside; throw about ten pounds of coarse bone-dust into the hole, and dig the bottom of the hole well over to mix the bone-dust with the subsoil; procure some well rotted stock-yard manure, and mix it up with the soil that was thrown aside until it is well pulverised, throw a little of it into the hole, then set the tree carefully in the centre and spread out the roots and fibres with the hand, at the same time filling in more soil, and pressing it gently in amongst the roots until it is finished; then proceed to place the turf on the top as near as possible in the same state as before it was taken out – finish by patting the turf over with the

back of the spade to firm it; drive in a good strong stake to each tree, and tie up with some soft ligature to prevent the bark from being wounded; the top of the leading shoot must be pruned off, and leave only three or four buds to form the tree. The next proceeding is fencing in; three posts and nine rails are sufficient for each tree; they are put up in triangular shape, leaving the tree exactly in the centre, the lower rail may be raised higher from the ground than usual, to admit of cattle feeding a little way under. After this the tree will require very little care, except thinning out the wood where it is too crowded, and keeping the fence in repair, giving each tree a top dressing of liquid manure every three years:

SEEDS REQUIRED TO SOW GARDEN PLOTS.

Asparagus, bed of 15 square yards, 1/2 pint; Beans, broad, per row of 80 feet, 1 quart; Beet, row of 50 feet, 1 ounce; Broccoli, per 4 square yards, 1/2 oz.; Brussels Sprouts, per 4 square yards, 1/2 oz.; Cabbage, bed of 8 square yards, 1/2 oz.; Carrots, drill of 120 feet, 1 oz.; Carrots, bed of 12 sq. yards, 1 oz.; Cauliflower, 4 square yards, 1/2 oz.; Celery, 4 square yards, 1/2 oz.; Cress, 3 square yards, 1 oz.; Endive, 4 square yards, 1/2 oz. Kale, 4 square yards, 1/2 oz.; Kidney Beans, row of 80 feet, 1/2 pint; Leek, 2 square yards, 1/2 oz.; Lettuce, 4 square yards, 1/4 oz.; Mushroom, 7 square yards, 1 bush.; Onions, 9 sq. yards, 1 oz.; Parsley, row of 80 feet, 1 oz.; Parsnip, drill of 200 feet, 1 oz.; Peas, early, row of 60 feet, 1 pint; Peas, large late, row of 80 feet, 1 pint; Potatoes, row of 30 feet, 1/4 peck; Radishes, 4 square yards, 1 oz.; Savoy, 4 square yards, 1/2 oz.; Spinach, 10 square yards, 1 ox.; Spinach, drill of 120 feet, 1 oz.; Turnip, 4 yards square, 1/2ounce.

SEEDS REQUIRED TO SOW AN IMPERIAL ACRE.

Barley, 2 1/2 to 2 3/4 bushels; Beans, 2 to 2 1/2 bush.; Buckwheat, 1 1/2 bush.; Cabbage, Drumhead, to transplant, 1 lb.; Canary, 3 pecks; Carrot in drills, 8 lbs.; Clover, 6 to 10 lbs.; Kohl Rabi (Turnip-rooted Cabbage) to transplant, 1 Ib.; Kohl Rabi, drilled, 4 lbs.; Linseed, for flax, 2. 1/2 bush.; Linseed, for seed, 1 1/2 bush.; Lucerne, broadcast, 20 lbs.; Lucerne, drilled, 15 lbs.; Mustard, white, 1 peck; Mangold Wurzel, 5 lbs.; Oats, 3 to 4 bush.; Parsnip, 8 lbs.; Rape or Cole, 8 lbs.; Rye, 2 1/2 to 3 bush.; Rye Grass, 1 to 2 bush., if drilled, one-fourth less; Saintfoin, 2 1/2 bush.; Tares, winter, 2 1/2 bushels; Tares, spring, 2 to 2 1/2 bush.; Trifolium incarnatum, 24 lbs.; Turnip, 2 to 3 lbs.; Turnip Stubble, 4 lbs.; Wheat, 2 1/2 to 2 1/2 bushels.

SEEDS REQUIRED FOR A GARDEN OF ONE ACRE.

Peas, 5 quarts; Beans, 2 quarts; Kidney Beans, 1 pint; Scarlet Runners, 1 pint; Cabbage, early, 2 oz.; Savoy, 1 oz.; Brussels Sprouts, 1 oz.; Cauliflower,. 1/2 oz.; Broccoli, 2 oz.; Borecole, 2 oz.; Cabbage, red,. 1/2 oz.; Cabbage, late or Drummond, 1 oz.; Kohl Rabi,. 1/2 oz.; Onions, 4 oz.; Carrots, 2 ox.; Turnips, white, 2 oz., yellow, 1 oz.; Celery,. 1/2 oz.; Spinach,. 1/2 pint; Beet, red, 1 oz., silver,. 1/2 oz.; Leek, 1 oz.; Parsnip, 2 oz.; Salsify,. 1/2 oz.; Skirret,. 1/2 oz.; Scorcenora,. 1/2 oz.; Endive, 1 oz.; Lettuce, 2 oz.; Radish, long, . 1/2 pint; Radish, turnip,. 1/2 pint; Mustard,. 1/2 pint; Cress, . 1/2 pint; Parsley, curled,. 1/2 oz.; Potatoes, early, in two sorts, 1. 1/2 bushels, late, in two sorts, 2 bushels; Jerusalem Artichokes, 1 gallon; Garlic,. 1/2 lb.; Shallots, 1 lb.; Sweet and Pot Herbs, of sorts, 1 oz.; Rhubarb, of sorts, 25 roots.

STATUTE ACRE IN YARDS, ETC.

DIMENSIONS OF A STATUTE ACRE IN YARDS,

FROM 1 TO 100 YARDS BY LENGTH.

DIMENSIONS OF A STATUTE ACRE IN YARDS

NUMBER OF PLANTS CONTAINED IN AN ACRE OF LAND.

NUMBER OF PLANTS CONTAINED IN AN ACRE OF LAND.

TO ASCERTAIN THE NUMBER OF YARDS, FEET, AND INCHES IN ANY NUMBER OF THE LINKS OF THE IMPERIAL CHAIN.

TO ASCERTAIN THE NUMBER OF YARDS, FEET, AND INCHES IN ANY NUMBER OF THE LINKS OF THE IMPERIAL CHAIN.

NUMBER OF PLANTS CONTAINED IN AN ACRE OF LAND.

NUMBER OF PLANTS CONTAINED IN AN ACRE OF LAND.

Multiply the distances into each other, and divide by it the square feet in an acre, or 43,560, and the quotient is the number of plants.

PLANTING AND SOWING.

PLANTING AND SOWING.

A TABLE FOR PLANTERS.

Showing the Number of Trees required per Imperial, Scottish and Irish Acres,

From 1 to 30 feet distance between each plant.

PLANTING AND SOWING.

WHEAT. – It is sometimes recommended to dry the wheat crop well in the field, but this is a mistake: let the farmer when he sees the knots of straw getting a greenish yellow cut at once, run it into windrows, that is two rows of sheaves heads turned inwards, end of windrow north and south, eight feet high, one sheaf capping the two; save the grain all you can from the weather.

WEIGHT OF PRODUCE PER ACRE.

WEIGHT OF PRODUCE PER ACRE.

TO ASCERTAIN, BY WEIGHING 20, THE WEIGHT PER ACRE OF POTATOES, TURNIPS, CARROTS, &c.

TO ASCERTAIN, BY WEIGHING 20, THE WEIGHT PER ACRE OF POTATOES, TURNIPS, CARROTS, &c.

EXAMPLE. – If the produce of 20 potato stools, or if 20 turnips-growing 12 inches apart from each other, weigh 0.642 of a lb., then the produce per acre is 1400 lbs.; if 1.285, then 2800 lbs. per acre; and so on. The second column shows the number of plants per acre: at 12 inches distance each way, the number is 43,560.

MISCELLANEOUS.

THE VALUE OF A GARDEN. – I hold that any farmer, who is worthy of the name, will prepare a small plot of ground for his wife and daughters, and that he will, out of love to them, make it all they can wish or desire. It is these little things that makes home pleasant and happy; and it has been the lack of these that has driven many a loving heart out into the world and away from a sterile barren home. Give the wife and daughters a place to plant, tend, and rear their flowers; help them if needs be, although it may take an hour sometimes that is hard to spare, and you will a thousand times bless God for so ordering your mind that you did it. What husband or father, rugged though his nature may be, does not fondly linger round a home made so bright and cheerful by the fairy hands of his wife and daughters, scattering, as it were, in his way, the beauties of their little plot! What son or brother ever forgets his home who has found his room daily perfumed with flowers, which have been raised by the hand of a fond mother or gentle loving sisters, and placed there through the promptings of their own affectionate hearts? What daughter ever forgets the home where she has cultivated her little garden, and year after year been so happy in the blossoms which have been borne upon the plants she has watered and tended with such patient care? Parents, brothers, sisters, the dear old home – all come back to her though years may have passed away, in the scent or bloom of every flower. The family is seldom unhappy whose dwelling is surrounded with shady trees, and whose garden is gay with cultivated plants. Do not then, I beseech you, forget the little flower garden.

ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO. – Captain Cook said of New Zealand – "The quality of the soil is best indicated by the luxuriant growth of its productions, for the hills are one continuous forest of lofty trees, flourishing with a vigour

almost superior to anything that imagination can conceive, and affording an august prospect to those who are delighted with the grand and beautiful works of nature. The agreeable temperature of the climate no doubt contributes much to this uncommon strength in vegetation, for at this time (February), though answering to our month of August, the weather was never disagreeably warm, nor did it raise the thermometer higher than 60 deg. The winter also seems equally mild with respect to cold, for in June, which corresponds to December, the mercury never fell lower than 48 deg., and the trees at that time retained their verdure as if in the summer season, so that I believe their foliage is never shed till pushed off by the succeeding leaves in spring. The weather in general is good, but sometimes windy with heavy rain, which however never lasts above a day, nor does it appear that it is ever excessive. I have observed in the four different times of my being here that the winds from south-eastward are commonly moderate, but. attended with cloudy weather and rain. The south-west winds blow very strong, and are also attended with rain, but they seldom last long. The north-west winds are the most prevailing, and though often pretty strong, are almost constantly connected with fine weather. In short, the only obstacle to this being one of the finest countries upon earth is its great hilliness."

THE MOON'S INFLUENCE. – If the tides of the vast ocean are raised from their fathomless bed by lunar power, it is not too much to assert that the tides of the atmosphere are liable to similar influence. This much is certain, that in low land of tropical climates, no attentive observer of nature will fail to witness the power exercised by the Moon over the seasons, and over animal and vegetable nature. As regards the latter, it may be stated that there are certainly 13 springs and 13 autumns in Demerara in the year; for so many tunes

does the sap of trees ascend to the branches and descend to the roots. For example, the wallaba (a resinous tree common in the Demerara woods, somewhat resembling mahogany), if cut down in the dark a few days before the New Moon, is one of the most durable woods in the world for house-building, posts, &c.; in that state attempt to split it, and, with the utmost difficulty, it would be riven in the most jagged and unequal manner that can be imagined. Cut down another wallaba (that grew within a few yards of the former,) at the Full Moon, and the tree can be easily split into the finest smooth shingles, of any desired thickness, or into staves for making casks; but in this state, applied to house-building purposes, it speedily decays. Again, bamboos as thick as a man's arm are sometimes used for paling, &c.; if cut at the dark Moon they will invariably endure for ten or twelve years; if at a Full Moon, they will be rotted in two or three years. Thus it is with most, if not all, forest trees. Of the effects of the Moon on animal life, very many instances could be cited. I have seen, in Africa, newly-born children perish in a few hours at the mother's side, when exposed to the rays of the Full Moon. Fish become rapidly putrid; the meat, if left exposed, incurable or unpreservable by salt; the mariner, heedlessly sleeping on the deck, becoming afflicted with hyctolopia or night-blindness – at times the face hideously swollen, if exposed during sleep to the moon's rays – the maniac's paroxysms renewed with fearful vigour at the full and change, and the cold damp chill of the ague supervening on the ascendency of this apparently mild, yet powerful luminary. Let her influence over this earth be studied – it is more powerful than is generally known.

RURAL CHRONOLOGY.

B. C. – 4003 – Sheep named, Gen. iv. 2; tillage named, Gen. ii. 5, iii. 23. 2409 – The first cultivation of corn attributed to Ceres. 1998 – The Chinese attribute the origin of husbandry to Ching-Noung, Emperor of China. 1921 – Cattle named as property, Gen. xiii. 2. 1749 – Wheat mentioned, Gen. xxx. 14. 1706 – Horses and wagons named, Gen. xlv. 21, xlvii. 17. 1520 – Harrows mentioned, Job xxxix. 10. 1491 – Barley, rye, and flax named, Exod. ix. 31, 32. 1451 – The plough first mentioned, Deut. xxii. 10. 1093 – Plough-shares and coulters named, 1 Sam. xiii. 20. 404 – Ale was known.

A. D. – 100 – Cherry trees first planted in England (about). 245 – A great inundation of the sea in Lincolnshire. 272 – A dreadful famine, the inhabitants obliged to eat the bark of trees. 300 – A dreadful famine in Scotland. 310 – A great famine, 40,000 persons perished. 340 – Saddles in use. 353 – A great inundation of the sea in Cheshire. 481 – Horses' shoes first made of iron. 531 – Pens first made of quills (about). 550 – Wheat supposed to be introduced into Britain by Coll ap Coll Frewi. 640 – Parishes first made; then 45,000 in number; reduced to 9,700 in 1527; amounted to 14,563 in 1776. 688 – Ale-booths set up in England. 739 – A dreadful famine. 759 – The greatest frost on record began Oct. 1, ended Feb. 26. 786 – Tithes first named in an English law. 823 – A dreadful famine. 884 – Tithes first granted to the English clergy by Ethelwold. 886 – Fairs and wakes instituted by Alfred. Bricks first used. 954 – A great famine. 987 – A frost for 120 days, began Jan. 22.

1016 – An excessive famine. 1035 – A severe frost on June 21, the corn and fruits destroyed. 1063 – The Thames

frozen 14 weeks. 1066 – Horses first generally shod (about). 1076 – Frost from Nov. till April. 1078 – Fairs established, and called Feriae by Gregory VII. 1079-85 – The New Forest made by William I. 1087 – A great famine.

1100 – 4,000 acres of land inundated in Kent. The Goodwin Sands formed. 1125 – The first park (Woodstock) formed in England. 1130 – The ordinary value of a sheep, fourpence. 1135 – Rents first made payable in money. 1191 – Coarse woollens first introduced (about).

1200 – Woollen cloths made in England (before). Chimneys first introduced; only one in middle of building till about 1300. 1205 – Frost from Jan. 15 till March 22. 1234 – Straw still used for the king's bed; Tiles first made in England. 1253 – Linen first made. 1266 – The price of corn first noticed in an Act of Parliament. 1284 – Cider first made. 1286 – Wheat sold for 1s. per qr. 1288 – The first general repair of the roads directed. 1299 – The price of two pullets, three half-pence; a partridge or two woodcocks, three half-pence; a lamb, sixpence.

1300 – Wine sold as a cordial by the apothecaries. 1303 – The English acre first made standard, to contain 4,840 square yards; before this time the acres of different parts of England differed in size. 1313 – A fat oxen was worth £2 12s.; a sheep, 5s. 1315 – A dreadful famine. 1335 – A dreadful famine from excessive rains. 1347 – Wheat first imported into England. 1352 – Hay-makers paid 1d. per day; mowers, 5d.; reapers, 2d. and 3d.; threshers, 2 1/2d. per qr. for wheat and rye; 1 1/4 d. for barley, oats, beans, peas, &c.; thatchers, 3d. per day. 1380 – Sidesaddles first used. 1389 – A bailiff had 13s. 4d. per annum and a suit of clothes; the master hind, 10s.; the carter, 10s.; shepherd, 10s.; ox, cow, and swine herds, 6s. 8d.; a ploughman, 7s.; a woman, 6s.

1400 – Wine sold for 12s. per pipe. 1428 – Hops peti-

tioned against "as a wicked, weed." 1434 – The Thames frozen from London to Gravesend, from Nov. 24 to Feb. 10. 1438 – A dreadful famine. 1441 – The cypress-tree introduced. 1445 – A bailiff's wages, 23s. 4d. per annum; and clothing, 5s.; shepherd, 20s.; a common labourer, 15s. 1460 – Corn first allowed to be exported. 1463 – First corn-law restraining the importation of wheat, unless selling at 6s. 8d. per qr. at the place of import. 1466 – A license granted by the king to transport a flock of Cotswold sheep into Spain. 1483 – A general plantation of yew-trees, for the use of archers, directed. The Severn overflowed its banks, and caused immense damage. 1497 – Almanacs first printed in England, by Richd. Pynson (about).

1509 – Gardening introduced. 1510 – Cabbages introduced. 1515 – Thomas Tusser born. 1520 – Mulberry-trees came from Italy. 1521 – Inclosures restrained. 1522 – Roses first came from the Netherlands, apples from Syria, plums from Italy. 1523 – Turkeys came. 1524 – Hops introduced. 1528 – Grapes came from Portugal, and mignionette from Italy. The use of hops in beer prohibited. 1530 – Strawberries came from Flanders. 1532 – An Act passed for the destruction of crows. 1533 – Firs first planted. Currants came from Zante. By the 25th Henry VIII., c. 13, no person was to keep more than 2000 sheep, except on his own land, and that no tenant should hold more than two farms. The exportation of corn prohibited. Beef and pork sold for one half-penny per lb. 1534 – Geraniums first came from Flanders. 1538 – Cucumbers introduced. Parish registers introduced. 1540 – Apricots came from Epirus, and gooseberries and carrots from Flanders. 1548 – Rosemary and the fig-tree introduced. 1554 – Corn allowed to be exported when wheat sold at 6s. 8d. per qr. 1560 – The tamarisk came from Germany. 1562 – Peaches and nectarines came from Persia. Corn not to be exported till wheat sold at 10s. per

qr. 1563 – Potatoes first brought from America by Sir John Hawkins. 1565 – A great famine. Corn first grown in Ireland about this time. 1567 – Auriculas introduced from Switzerland, and pinks from Italy. 1568 – A farm labourer's daily wages 4d. Carnations came from Flanders, and pine apples from the Brazils. Lavender came from the South of Europe. 1571 – An average price of corn first directed to be ascertained (13 Eliz. c. 13). 1576 – Laburnums introduced from Hungary. 1578 – The tulip came from Vienna. 1581 – The evergreen oak came from the south of Europe (before). 1588 – A newspaper first published in England. 1592 – An export duty of 2s. per qr. imposed. Corn not to be exported till wheat sold at 20s. per qr. (35 Eliz. c. 7). 1596 – The laurestina came from southern Europe.

1603 – The silver fir came from Switzerland, and cauliflowers from Cyprus (about). Corn not to be imported till wheat sold at 26s. 8d. per qr. (1 James I. c. 28). 1606 – The Severn overflowed, and caused an immense flood, more than 100 persons drowned. Cider orchards first made in England (about). 1610 – Tea first brought into Europe. 1620 – A labourer's wages per day, 4 1/2 d. 1621 – Alehouses first licensed. 1624 – The growth of tobacco forbidden. 1629 – The walnut came from South America. 1632 – A labourer's daily wages 6d. 1640 – Acacia introduced into England from North America. 1642 – New Zealand discovered by Tasman. 1647 – A labourer's daily wages 10d. 1652 – Poor Robin's Almanac first printed. 1656 – Bread first made with yeast (about). 1660 – Duty first imposed on ale. Wheat allowed to be exported free when under 40s. per qr.; at a duty of 5s. 6d. when under 44s.; and when above 44s., 6s. 8d. (12 Car. II. c. 4). 1661 – Wine licenses first granted. 1662 – A labourer's daily wages 6d. 1663 – Importation of Irish and Scottish cattle prohibited. Turnpikes first erected. Wheat allowed to be exported

when selling at less than 48s. per qr. at a duty of 5s. 4d. (15 Car. II. c. 7). Covent Garden market-square built. 1666 – Remarkable hailstorm in Suffolk. Tea first brought into England. 1667 – A duty on. malt first imposed. 1670 – Average price of wheat at Eton 37s. per qr. Wheat allowed to be exported when averaging less than 53s. 4d. per qr. at a duty of 1s.; to be imported at a duty of 16s. when under 53s. 4d.; at 8s. when above 53s. 4d. till it averaged 80s.; then free (22 Car. H. c. 13). 1673-4-5 – Deficient harvests. 1684 – Turnips first mentioned as food for sheep. A very intense frost. 1688 – A labourer's daily wages 8d. 1689 – A bounty of 5s. per qr. granted on corn exported. 1691 – The scarlet oak came from North America (before). 1692 – The weeping willow came from the Levant. 1694-5-6-7-8-9, 1700-1 – Very deficient harvests. 1696 – The Balm of Gilead fir brought from Virginia (about).

1697 – Amount of bounties paid on exported corn, £14,712. Winchester bushel ordered to contain 2150.42 square inches.

1698 – A labourer's daily wages, 8d.

1700 – Average price of wheat at Eton, 32s. 5d. per qr. 1703 – The "great storm," Nov. 26; multitudes of cattle drowned, and in one level 15,000 sheep destroyed. 1704 – Celery introduced. 1705 – John Evelyn died, Feb. 27. 1707 – Bounties on corn exported, £38,997. 1709 – A frost with heavy snow, from December till March. 1713 – Moore's Almanac first printed. The laurel came from Alexandria. 1715 – John Ray died, Jan. 17. 1716 – A labourer's daily wages 9d. A severe frost from Nov. 24 to Feb. 9. 1720 – Average price of wheat at Eton, 32s. 10d. per qr. 1720 – Society of improvers of agriculture in Scotland formed. 1724 – Moss roses introduced. 1727 – Bounties on corn exported, £48, 756. 1729 – A hard frost for nine weeks,, began Jan. 24. 1730 – Average price of wheat at Eton, 32s. 5d. per qr. The chesnut leaved oak came from North America (before). 76,210 head of cattle

sold, this year at Smithfield market. Porter first brewed (about), 1731 – Sage came from the Cape of Good Hope. 1732 – The grand juries at Sessions were directed to fix the average price of corn. 1735 – -The Turkey oak came from the south of Europe (before). 1736 – The birch brought from America. 1737 – Bounties paid on corn exported, £102,511. 1740 – Jethro Tull died, Jan. 3. Average price of wheat at Eton, 48s. 10d. A labourer's daily wages 10d. A severe frost, which lasted nine weeks. 1741 – Remarkable hurricane at Bluntsham, in Huntingdonshire, about sixty barns blown down, Sept. 8. 1746 – Roads first made in the Scottish Highlands, by General Wade. 1747 – Bounties paid on corn exported, £127,011. 1748 – A considerable famine. A swarm of locusts visited England, August 4. 1749 – Dublin Agricultural Society formed. 1750 – Average price of wheat at Eton, 28s. 10d. 1757 – Bounties paid on corn exported, £22,658. 1760 – A labourer's daily wages, 1s. 1762 – 102, 831 head of cattle sold at Smithfield. 1766 – Deficient harvests. Quartern loaf sold in London at 1s. 6d. A severe frost. 1767 – Bounties paid on corn exported, £8,156. Remarkable hailstorm in Hertfordshire, May 4. 1768 – Gypsum first used as a manure, by M. Meyer. 1770 – Corn returns first ordered to be made weekly. 1771 – Average price of wheat, as published by receivers of corn returns, 47s. 2d. The great or Ripon flood in Yorkshire. 1773 – Cook planted several places in New Zealand with European seeds. 1775 – Crushed bones first used as a manure by General St. Leger. Remarkable dry spring and summer. 1777 – Bounties paid on corn exported, £45, 029. Bath and West of England Society formed. The Hessian fly ravaged the wheat crops of England. 1780 – Average price of wheat, 35s. 10d 1784 – Highland Society instituted. Tax on riding horses first imposed. 1787 – Bounties paid on exportation of corn, £50,916. A great inundation of the

river Liffey, in Ireland. 1788 – Linnean Society founded. Merino sheep first imported by George III. A labourer's daily wages, 1s. 4d. 1789 – China roses introduced. The Thames frozen over; the frost lasted from Nov. to Jan 1790 – Average price of wheat, 53s. 2d. per qr. Professorship of Agriculture founded at Edinburgh. 1792 – 107, 348 head of cattle sold at Smithfield. 1793 – London Board of Agriculture established. 1795 – Robert Bakewell died, Oct. 1. A great scarcity of food in England. 1796 – Smithfield Club instituted. Intense frost throughout Dec. Tax on dogs first imposed. 1797 – Bounties paid on exportation of corn, £62.

1800 – Average price of wheat, 110s. 5d. Great hailstorm in Bedfordshire, Aug. 19. 1801 – A scarcity of food in England. Wheat averaged in March, 151s. 2d.; barley, 90s. 7d.; oats, 47s. 2d.; in June, 129s. 8d.; in December, 75s. 6d. Population of England and Wales, 8,331,434; of Scotland, 1,599,068. 1802 – Francis Duke of Bedford died, March 2. Average price of wheat in December, 57s. 1d. A great inundation of the river Liffey, in Ireland, causing great damage. 1803 – Dahlias introduced from China. 1804 – Mangel-wurzel introduced by Dr. Lettsom. The London Horticultural Society founded. 1807 – Dr. Priestley died, Feb. 6. A remarkable hailstorm in Suffolk, May 2. 1808 – A dreadful hailstorm in Gloucestershire, July 15. 1809 – The Edinburgh Horticultural Society founded. A dreadful hailstorm at Horsham, March 28; and in Middlesex, May 19. 1810 – Average price of wheat, 103s. 3d. Dreadful hailstorm at Windsor, July 15. Average rental per acre of England and Wales, 17s. 3 1/2d. per acre; of Scotland, 5s. 1 1/2d. 1811 – A remarkable hailstorm in Denbighshire, April 23; at Melton, April 29; at Sheffield, May 10; at Birmingham, June 8; at Bury St. Edmund's, June 8. 1812 – Board of Agriculture discontinued. Remarkable hailstorm at Southend, June 21. In August,

wheat, 155s.; barley, 79s. 10d.; oats, 56s. 2d. 1813 – After harvest, wheat, 73s. 6d. 1814 – Bounties on corn exported ceased. Intense frost, the Thames frozen over. A scarcity of food in Ireland. Remarkable hailstorm in Leicestershire, July 28; and at Coventry, Sept. 24. At the peace of 1814 the right of Great Britain to New Zealand recognised. 1816 – Scarcity of food in Ireland. Inundation at Strabane, in Ireland, Jan. 2. 1817 – – The Dublin Horticultural Society founded. Dreadful hailstorms at Dublin and Glasgow, Feb. 27; at Dunkeld, June 10; in Gloucestershire, June 21; and Perth, June 23. 1818 – M'Adam's system of road-making introduced. Remarkable hailstorm in Middlesex and Bedfordshire, April 26. 1819 – -Lord Somerville died, Oct. 5. 5,000 acres of land inundated in the Fens, June. 1820 – Average price of wheat, 65s. 10d Arthur Young died, aged 79, April 12. Farmer's Magazine commenced. Dreadful hailstorm devastated North Essex, July 30. 1821 – Dreadful hailstorm in Cheshire, June 20. Population of England and Wales, 11,261,437; of Scotland, 2,093,456. 1822 – 142,048 head of cattle sold at Smithfield. A scarcity of food in Ireland. Dreadful hailstorm in Middlesex, May 25. 1824 – Dreadful hailstorm, May 22, in Somersetshire; another, causing great devastation, in Herts and Essex, July 14; 3,487 acres of corn destroyed or materially damaged. 1826 – -A remarkable hailstorm in Hertfordshire, June 27. 1828 – London Corn Exchange opened, June. Remarkable hailstorm near Gravesend, Sept. 12. Sir James E. Smith died. 1829 – Sir H. Davy died, May 29. Remarkable hailstorm at Dover, July 14. 1830 – Average price of wheat, 64s. 3d. British Farmer's Magazine commenced. Remarkable hailstorm in Norfolk, June 25. 1831 – A scarcity of food in Ireland. Remarkable hailstorm in Suffolk, July 14. Population of England and Wales, 13,897,187; of Scotland, 2,365,114; of Ireland, 7,767,401; there were 1,055,982

agricultural labourers in Great Britain, and 1,131,715 in Ireland. 1832 – 166,224 Lead of cattle sold at Smithfield. John Ellman died, Nov. 22. Baron Cuvier died, May, aged 63. 1834 – Remarkable hailstorm in Essex, July 8. 1835 – Sir John Sinclair died, Dec. 20. 172,919 beasts sold at Smithfield. 1838 – Royal Agricultural Society instituted. 1839 – Meeting of the Royal Agricultural Society at Oxford, July 17. Wooden paving introduced in London. 1840 – Average price of wheat, 66s. 4d. Meeting of Royal Agricultural Society at Cambridge, July. Professorship of Agriculture founded at Oxford. Farmers' Insurance founded. 180,041 beasts sold at Smithfield. 1841 – Great inundation at Brentford, Jan. 16. Royal Agricultural Society of Ireland instituted. Population of England and Wales, 14,995,508; Scotland, 2,620,610. Guano first introduced into England. Dreadful hailstorms in Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex, causing an enormous destruction of crops, in July and August 1843 – Two inches depth of rain fell, Aug. 24. The Rev. W. L. Rham died, Oct. 31. J. C. Loudon died, Dec. 14. 188,268 beasts sold at Smithfield. 1844 – The London Cattle Insurance Society founded. Corn-law Act passed, June 26. Dreadful thunder and hailstorms, Aug. 1. 1847 – General failure of the potato crop. Great scarcity of food. Famine in Ireland. Average price of wheat, last week in May, 102s. 5d. Corn duties suspended, July. Navigation laws suspended for the importation of corn. Great reduction in the price of corn. Average price of wheat, in week ending Sept. 18, 49s. 6d. 1849 – Corn admitted at a nominal duty of 1s., Feb. 1. General agricultural distress. Prices of corn very low. 4,835,280 qrs. of wheat and flour imported. Average price per qr. for week ending Dec. 29, wheat, 39s. 4d.; barley, 25s. 9d.; oats, 15s. 6d. 1850 – J. Smith, of Deanston, died, June 10. Average price of wheat in week ending Dec. 28, 38s. 10d 1852 – Reaping machines introduced.

[Advertisements for books]

NEW ZEALAND PUBLICATIONS,

A DESCRIPTIVE LIST OF WORKS

RECENTLY PUBLISHED BY

GEO. T. CHAPMAN,

BOOKSELLER, AUCKLAND.

Handy Book for New Zealand Sheep Farmers,
And How to Select and Manage a Sheep Station. By Joseph May. Price 1s.

"A most useful work, and likely to supply a want felt.... Mr. May gives some hints of a thoroughly practical character as how to know a sound healthy sheep, the age, breed, and varieties of sheep, &c. We strongly recommend all engaged in the pastural interest to purchase a copy of this excellent work." – Evening News.

"It combines within small limits a great deal that may be of immense value to the young settler.... It forms a kind of appendix to the standard English works on the treatment of sheep, furnishing information more immediately suitable to this Colony.... We can confidently commend this book to the favorable notice of the class for whom it is intended." – Daily Southern Cross.

"One of the very best specimens of Handy Books that we have seen... The author, Mr. May, is a successful farmer, he has been settled in this Colony for a number of years. He has imported and bred some of the best stock in the Colony, all which circumstances entitle him to the greatest possible attention, at the same time that they remove him from the temptation of mere book-making.... A great deal of important information is given which possesses interest for the general reader as well as for the sheep farmer.... A good illustration of Mr. May's power of compressing a great deal of information into a small compass will be found under the head 'Selecting Stock for a Sheep Run.'... No farmer or sheep breeder should be without this work. The information is varied and important, and has been judiciously condensed into a convenient compass." – New Zealand Herald.

Gazetteer of the Province of Auckland.

Second edition, revised and enlarged, 2s. 6d.; or with a large lithographed map of the province, full-bound cloth, 4s. This is a most indispensable band-book to strangers and recent arrivals; it contains the names and description of over thirteen hundred places in the

province. The first edition was published in 1862, since then the war has taken place, the country has been opened up and settled, new names associated with the early history of New Zealand, places and localities connected with the recent war, &c, have all been added, along with much useful information. It also contains a key to the pronunciation of Maori names. "We have much pleasure in calling the attention of our readers to the second edition of the 'Gazetteer of the Province of Auckland,' revised and enlarged, with a fine new map of nearly the whole of the North Island, just published by Mr. Chapman, bookseller. The utility of a reliable work such as this is almost self evident. By a reference to its pages, and the map, the reader will obtain an intimate knowledge of the various counties, settlements, villages, harbours, rivers, &c., and the vexation and annoyance hitherto caused by the mention of almost unknown places in official and public records will be avoided. It is, in short, a condensed description of nearly every place in the province. We perceive the publisher has very wisely prefixed a short key to the spelling and sound of native letters, words, sentences, and the names of places. The information has been compiled from many different sources, and must have involved much labour and expense. It is a useful addition to our local literature, and we hope the publisher will be remunerated for his outlay in producing such a work." – Weekly News.

Handy Book on the Honey Bee.

How to manage the Honey Bee in New Zealand, compiled by an Old Bee-keeper, revised by H. J. Hawkins, Belvidere Fruit Nursery, and David Hay, Montpellier Nursery. Price 2s. 6d. This book contains the information required in managing the Honey Bee, how to get plenty of pure white Honey all the year round without destroying the Bees, the easiest methods peculiarly suited to the climate, how to manage the different hives, bell-glasses, swarming and hiving; to convey Bees to a distance, uniting stocks, taking honey, the profits of Bee-keeping, and a Sermon by Dr. Cumming.

"The experience of such a man as a practical bee-keeper in New Zealand is highly valuable to the colonists." – New Zealand Herald.

"It is certainly very strange that bee-keeping in New Zealand should be so easy to manage, and so profitable, and that honey is so scarce and expensive....

This little work is just what is required to enable every country settler to make a very large annual profit out of bee-keeping." – Daily Southern Cross.

Hay's Handy Rook on the Kitchen Garden.

The management of the Kitchen Garden, arranged for the seasons and climate of New Zealand. By David Hay, Montpellier Nursery. Price 2s. This is the first section of Mr. Hay's large work on the proper management of the Garden in New Zealand. The want of this has long been felt, English works being of very little use in this climate. For example, we say August corresponds to February in Europe, but this is not the case, for in England during February and March the snow and bitter frost kills the first appearance of vegetation, in the middle of August in New Zealand we have buds bursting, the peach in bloom, and the sap flowing; the temperature 50 deg., while in England the temperature only rises to 48 deg. in April, it will be seen from this that great care is required in compiling a gardening work for this climate.

Handy Book to the Farm and Garden,

The Orchard, the Flower Garden, and the Greenhouse. Price 1s. Compiled principally from information in the possession of the publisher, furnished by Joseph May, David Hay, and H. J. Hawkins. This useful little volume has had a great sale, and is well-named Handy Book, for it conveys a very great amount of information in small compass; in farming we have the season for clearing, burning, ploughing, sowing, reaping, &c; the same with the other departments; in fact, no farmer or country settler should be without one of these, to enable him to refresh his memory every month as to what he should do and how he should do it.

New Maori Grammar and Phrase Book, or First Step to Maori Conversation.

By H. T. Kemp, late Native Secretary and Interpreter to the General Government. Price 2s. 6d. Every one engaged in business in this colony should at once become acquainted with, this beautiful language; the practical rules and examples given in this Manual are quite sufficient to enable any one after a few hours' study to understand and converse with the Maori on almost any subject; it is at once a Grammar, a Phrase Book, and a Dictionary; contains the Maori and English names of nearly every object in the visible creation, their uses, qualities, and relations; names of animals, birds, fishes, colours, crimes, food, fruits, trees, &c Dialogues on agriculture, barter, education, travelling, land, ships, roads, visitors, war, &c; also a list of nouns, adjectives, verbs, and phrases introducing the use of them.

"This book is one of the most useful of the kind, and will be of considerable assistance to any one wishing to acquire a knowledge of the language. Incorporated in the volume are translations of two of the finest stories in Sir George Grey's 'Traditions of the New Zealanders, ' which we dare say will be to many the most interesting part of the volume. One of these is the story of 'Hinemoa, the maiden of Rotorua'; and the other, 'Puhihuia's Elopement with Te Punga,' the scene of which was at Mount Eden, near Auckland." – Daily Southern Cross.

New Zealand Gold Ready Reckoner and Miners' Pocket Companion.

Contents: – The Ready Reckoner from £2 to £4 2s. 6d. per ounce – Table for Standarding Gold – Decimal Fineness of Gold – Sterling Value of One Ounce of Metal containing Gold and Alloy of various proportions – British Monies, Weights, and Measures – Measures of Length – Square and Land Measure – Solid and Cubic Measure – Liquid Measure – Avoirdupois, Troy, Apothecaries, Hay, Straw, and Wool Weight. Price 3s.

"This is a useful and indispensable little book to the miner who is frequently more expert with his pick and shovel than arithmetic.... The book is well printed and neatly bound, and is published at a moderate price." – Evening News.

Index to the Statute Law of New Zealand.

Contains short title of Ordinances of the Legislative Council from 1840 to 1853, and the Acts of the General Assembly to 1867, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Parliaments of New Zealand, the date or num-

her of the Ordinance or Act, the page of the authorised edition of the Statutes, the page of the "Handy Book of the Laws," and remarks as to the disposal of those repealed, superseded, &c Bound in handsome red cloth, price 5s.; or the Index and Handy Book, two vols, in one, cheap edition, 5s. A very handy pocket manual for Barristers, Solicitors, Attorneys, &c, and every person engaged in business in New Zealand; shows at a glance the name and character of the Act, and which Act is in force. "This little volume will be found to be of the greatest use. This Index brings up the Ordinances and Statutes complete to the beginning of 1867. When it is remembered that there is hardly a complete set of Ordinances and Statutes in the Colony, that the earlier Ordinances are not indexed in the authorised volume, and that the legislation of the Colony has, for many years, principally consisted of amendments,... a cheap and handy Index, which will give them all the necessary information at a glance. This is the most complete book of the kind we have yet seen brought out by private enterprise. The legal profession ought to feel grateful to Mr. Chapman for saving them the loss of time and trouble of indexing and correcting the Statutes for their own use." – Daily Southern Cross.

Handy Book of the Laws of New Zealand:

Being an Abridgment of the Ordinances of the Legislative Council and of the Acts of the General Assembly, forming a complete epitome of the Laws of New Zealand, bound in handsome red cloth, price 10s.; or the cheap edition, two vols, in one, 5s.

"The work now before us is a most creditable production.... Of the many admirable publications for which we have to thank Mr. Chapman, there is not one of greater practical utility than this 'Handy Book of the Statute Law of New Zealand.' Those who wish to avoid the irksome task of wading through the Statute Book itself, cannot do better than purchase this useful little book. There they will find an accurate and intelligent abridgment of the Ordinances of the Legislative Council and of the Acts of the General Assembly of New Zealand. 'The Index' gives the date and number of the several Ordinances and Acts, the short title, the page of the authorised edition; and it points out how far, and how the Ordinances and Acts are repealed, amended, superseded, or altogether rendered obsolete. It also contains a reference to the page of the 'Handy Book,' in which an abridgment of the Act may be found. We are of opinion that the 'Index' will be especially valuable to members of the legal profession. The first edition of the 'Handy Book' was published in the Almanac issued in I860 by Mr. Chapman, and that profound lawyer, Sir Geo. A. Arney, pronounced it to be one of the best abridgments of the laws of any country that he had ever seen.... Young men whose future prospects call them to acquire a complete knowledge of the Colonial law of New Zealand, can now supply themselves with a manual at once reliable, portable, and cheap; whilst the members of the legal profession, when on circuit, could hardly fail, we think, to appreciate the value of this really handy little book. To the general public, it is almost superfluous to point out its merits. Both in this Province and also in the South it will, we are sure, find many purchasers. It is by far the best digest or abridgment of the laws of New Zealand that has yet been published. Its merits are great. We have carefully compared the book with the original statutes, and we can testify to iti accuracy – that greatest of all virtues in a composition of this kind. The style in which both the 'Handy Book' and the 'Index' are printed and bound, reflects credit upon Mr. Chapman; and when we consider the enormous amount of skilled labour which must have been employed and paid for by Mr, Chapman, we think

the price at which these books are sold extremely moderate.... We have dwelt ob the merits of Mr. Chapman's book at this length, because we think it only fair that notice should be taken by the public press of the enterprise which he has exhibited by the publication, in these times of depression, of the valuable book we have this day reviewed. This is not the first time that we have had occasion to testify to Mr. Chapman's enterprise and public spirit. We are convinced that if the same amount of energy were manifested by each individual of this Province in his particular pursuit, the miserable state of things which now exists in Auckland would not long prevail among us." – Daily Southern Cross.

Chart of the Colony of New Zealand,

With the adjacent Islands, showing the boundary of the Colony, as defined by an Act of the Imperial Parliament, viz.: – New Zealand, Chatham, Bounty, Antipodes, Auckland, and Campbell Islands; contains also the Kennedy, Norfolk, Lord Howe, New Caledonia, Loyalty, New Hebrides, Fiji, Friendly, Navigator's, &c, copied from the Admiralty Charts. Price 1s. 6d.

New Lithographed Map of New Zealand.

This large comprehensive Map of New Zealand embodies all the recent surveys in the Provinces, including the West Coast of the Middle Island. The size, 22 by 35 inches, gives ample room for every name, either Native or European, on the coast or in the interior. Each of the Provinces are fairly delineated, and the most important names and features given. The principal places in Capitals, minor places in italics to make reference easier. The Map contains – Provinces, Chief Towns, Mountains, with the height in feet, Rivers, Lakes, Bays, Harbours, &c A Sketch Map of Australasia, showing the relative positions of New Zealand and Australia; an outline Map of the World, on Mercator's projection, showing the various Mail routes, with the distances in nautical miles. Price 4s.

New Map of the North Island of New Zealand.

This beautiful Map includes the Provinces of Auckland, Taranaki, Hawke's Bay, and Wellington, with all the recent surveys, and is without exception the finest piece of map writing and lithographic printing ever executed in New Zealand. It gives all the principal features of the four Provinces of the North Island, the towns, villages, mountains, rivers, ranges, the area of each Province, and the main lines of road; it also contains the new subdivision of the Province of Auckland into seventeen Counties, with the names and boundaries of each; the Military and Special Settlements, &c Price 2s. 6d.

Map of the Middle Island of New Zealand.

This large Map includes the Provinces of Nelson, Marlborough, Canterbury, Otago and Southland, with all the latest information. A great expense was incurred in getting up this large Map of the Middle Island, but it is the most complete and comprehensive Map of the Island yet published. It contains all the principal features of the country in the several Provinces, including the Gold-fields, . Roads, and Railways. The size of these Maps of the North and

Middle Islands, 22 by 35 inches, gives plenty of room for the clear and distinct writing and printing of the very large number of names, &c, they contain. Price 2s. 6d.

Large Map of the Province of Auckland.

This useful Map has had a large sale and appears to give great satisfaction. It is a convenient travelling map, and may be had in sheets, or in cloth case, folding up for the pocket. It gives the Islands, Harbours, Bays, Rivers, Lakes, Mountains, Roads, Counties, Villages, &c Price 2s. 6d.

Enlarged Map of the Province of Auckland – Northern part.

This beautiful, clear, and distinct large Map of Wynyard, Mangonui, Hokianga, Bedford, Hobson and Marsden Counties, drawn to the scale of four miles to an inch, gives the natural features of the country on a large scale; it shows the measured lines round the surveyed lands and the Parishes; the Rivers and Harbours, with the soundings in fathoms at low water. The size of the Map is 22 by 35 inches. Price 2s. 6d.

Enlarged Map of the Province of Auckland – Middle part.

This large Map of the middle part of the Province, having the City of Auckland in the centre, gives on the scale of four miles to an inch the most accurate idea of the Manukau, Kaipara, Waitemata, and the Thames, with the rivers and arms intersecting the country; also the divisions as to parishes and surveyed lands, with the area; it gives the main lines and district roads, the confiscated lands, Counties, Villages, and Settlements. Price 2s. 6d.

"We call the attention of our readers to another very beautifully lithographed map just published by Mr. Chapman. Being on such a large scale, and very clearly printed, the outlines of the bays, harbours, headlands, &c, are distinctly shown, together with the different county and parish boundaries, blocks of land confiscated, settled, or in course of settlement. It shows also the towns and villages, native and European.... No expense has evidently been spared in the preparation of this map by the publisher, and as the information has been compiled chiefly from the latest Government sources, its accuracy is at once placed beyond dispute. This is only one of a number of useful maps published by Mr. Chapman." – Weekly Herald.

Enlarged Map of the Province of Auckland – The Waikato.

This Map, drawn on a scale of four miles to an inch, was compiled from the very elaborate surveys of the Military Staff during and after the recent war; the lines of confiscated country, the area of the surveyed special blocks, the military posts, villages, and places celebrated during the war; it contains the districts of Raglan, Aotea, the Thames and Piako, with the Goldfields, the Taupo Lake Country, and Tauranga; the Harbours and Rivers, with the soundings in fathoms. Price 2s. 6d.

Registration Plan of the City of Auckland.

This fine, large, distinct Map was copied from the Government Registration Plans of the City, to the scale of four-chains to an

inch. Great exertions have been made to get up a better one than this, but all have signally failed, and this is still the most complete, correct and comprehensive Plan of the City of Auckland at the price; it contains the boundaries of the City and the Wards, indicates the principal buildings, churches, public offices, &c, the number and the division of the sections and allotments, with the measurement of each, the names of the streets, &c. Price 2s. 6d.

*** Of these Maps, the North, Middle, and Waikato part of the Province of Auckland have been drawn on a large scale, to show more distinctly the general features of the country – the Surveyed Blocks, Forty-Acre Lands, Special and Military Settlements, the Counties, Parishes, Native Reserves and Confiscated Lands, Villages, Roads, Rivers, Harbours, &c, in the Province, and have been found very valuable in guiding intending settlers in the selection of land. Having all been published in Auckland, at very considerable expense, under the publisher's own superintendence, with the kind assistance of the principal Government Surveyors and Draughtsmen, they contain more accurate information, are more complete and better finished than any Maps of New Zealand yet published. The very generous encomiums bestowed on them by the press in New Zealand, and the important fact that the Select Committee of the House of Representatives appointed to determine the line for the Electric Telegraph and the Railway through the North Island, selected these Maps for this purpose as being the most accurate and reliable, justifies the publisher in calling the special attention of the inhabitants of New Zealand to these Maps, they are offered at most reasonable prices to encourage a large sale. They may be had in sheets or neatly bound in cloth case for the pocket, either plain or colored.

The Age of New Zealand, a Geological Paper

By Rev. Richard Taylor, M.A., F.G.S., author of "New Zealand and its inhabitants. "Price 1s," This is an attempt to solve the problem of the Geological Age of New Zealand. In comparing the different formations dividing the grand epochs of the earth's history, Mr. Taylor shows a thorough knowledge of the subject and a perfect acquaintance with the country; he seems to think that New Zealand is part of a large continent belonging to the lias or bird age."

Our Race and its Origin, an Ethnological Paper,

By Rev. Richard Taylor, M.A., F.G.S., author of "New Zealand and its inhabitants." Price 1s. "This appears to be a collection of observations from personal experience and from reading, gradually formed during a life time; the subject is divided into two parts, the printed record and geological evidence. Mr. Taylor does not agree with the Darwin school, but looks carefully around and finds people with black skins in hot climates, and the reverse. He follows man through Asia, Africa, America, and Europe. Noah's sons spread East, North, South, and West. The influence of climate gives us the white, the red, the yellow, and the brown skin. The pamphlet will be read with pleasure and profit by those who take an interest in these things."

Hay's Annual Garden Book,

Containing a Descriptive Priced Catalogue of the Stock of Ornamental Trees, Shrubs, Conifers, Evergreens, Climbers, and American Plants, Fruit Trees and Herbaceous Plants, Annual and Biennial Flower Seeds, Bulbs, Tubers, &c, with a calendar of monthly operations in the Garden, Orchard, Flower Garden, and Greenhouse, by David Hay, Nurseryman, Hobson's Bay. Price 6d.

"This Calendar has always been received as reliable authority on the subject to which it refers, and deservedly so. The present Calendar will be found very much improved and enlarged, and we can confidently recommend it for the use of those whose acquaintance with gardening in New Zealand seasons is limited." – Daily Southern Cross.

"We can recommend it to those engaged in gardening operations as a very useful publication." – Weekly News.

The Pine Tree in New Zealand,

Being a List of Pines grown from Seed introduced into New Zealand, with a few hints to those persons who may wish to cultivate them for ornament, for shelter, or for their commercial value, by David Hay, with additions by Sir George Grey, K.C.B. Price 6d.

New Zealand Ball Room Pocket Companion,

Arranged by an Auckland Lady Teacher, containing hints on deportment or ball room etiquette, a good collection of popular dances, and the correct figures used in Auckland Assemblies. Price 1s.

"It is very neatly got up. The following extract will explain the object of it. The company usually assembled in a ball room in this Colony naturally feel embarrassed on account of having been taught different figures for the dance. For the purpose, therefore, of establishing one uniform set of figures in dancing assemblies, at the urgent request of a number of friends, this little Manual has been compiled." – Weekly News.

The Want of the Country the Work of the Church:

A Sermon, by Rev. D. Bruce, St. Andrew's Church, Auckland. Price 1s.

Providence and Prayer:

A Sermon, by Rev. P. Barclay, St. Paul's Church, Napier, and Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand. Price 1s.

Chapman's New Zealand Almanac;

Nautical, Official, and Commercial Directory. Published annually. Price 2s. 6d.

OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.
1860. – The most complete work of that nature which has yet been got up within the Colony.... Upon the whole we can recommend the New Zealand Almanac as the most comprehensive, &c. – Southern Cross. The most complete and comprehensive and reliable authority with regard to the entire Colony. The undertaking was no light one for a private individual.... These extracts will afford a fair sample of the care which has been bestowed upon the compilation... reliable

authority as a handbook of the Colony. – New Zealander. If energy and enterprise on the part of the proprietor go for aught, it ought to take its position as a necessary and valuable annual. We are well aware of the great pains and expense incurred in rendering this annual not only a medium of much general intelligence to the Colonists of New Zealand, but a welcome source of referential information to "old folks at home," for which neither money nor industry have been spared... untiring intelligence and anxiety to produce a trustworthy volume to convey intelligence to other and distant lands looking towards New Zealand with anxious and longing eyes... We heartily hope it will prove a hit, repay its proprietor, and render it one of our anniversaries.' – Auckland Register.

1861. – This Almanac is decidedly the largest and best which has ever yet issued from the New Zealand press. It is what it purports to be, not a merely provincial, but a Colonial almanac. It contains amongst other valuable information... together with a directory for each province. We have never seen a more useful publication, nor one more deserving of the patronage of the New Zealand colonist. – Wellington Advertiser. We know no mode in which an idea of the 'form and pressure' of the Colony can be more readily or effectually conveyed to a distant friend than by transmitting a copy of this "Handy Book." – New Zealander. G. T. Chapman having published a compendious Book Almanac for the past year with considerable success, has now issued another for 1861. The work contains an immense quantity of well-arranged matter. In addition to the ordinary Calendar it comprises much useful information of a miscellaneous character relative to the history, resources, topography, and present condition of that Colony. The whole exhibits care in compilation, and in completion of detail is all that could be desired. – Sydney Morning Herald. In a comprehensive yet portable form, a mass of interesting information relative to New Zealand, which can hardly be met with in any accessible publication. – London Daily News. Chapman's New Zealand Almanac for 1861 is a compendious and therefore valuable publication. – Lyttelton Times.

1862. – The difficulty and expense in obtaining and compiling the mass of information contained in this book can hardly be imagined... This is the "Hannay" of New Zealand, and most valuable to nautical men. – Sydney Empire. This is the only Almanac published which embraces the entire Colony; in its Provincial Directory it is invaluable as a work of reference. – Southern Cross. This exceedingly well got up almanac contains a mass of useful information... From the figures just quoted it will be seen that the almanac is a work of great value.... Altogether we must congratulate Mr. Chapman on his success in getting up such a hand book every way worthy of the spirited young colony with which he is connected. – Stonehaven Journal. It is a valuable compilation of useful information relative to all the material interests of that thriving colony.... The work does credit to the Auckland press, and it is calculated to satisfy the inquiries of all who may contemplate trying their fortunes in any of the provinces. – London Morning Star. A member of the Directory family is Chapman's New Zealand Almanac, published at Auckland, full of information and statistics of every description.... a volume which the future New Zealander will prize more highly than we do a Caxton or a Wynken de Worde. – London Bookseller.

1863. – a circulating medium of authentic intelligence, it keeps pace with the advances that are making in all the provinces... it may challenge comparison with many of the more elaborate annuals of the old country. We recommend it as a very appropriate Christmas Souvenir to far away friends. – New Zealander _ Although styled an "Almanac," it contains information on subjects not merely connected with tides and seasons, but gives us a large number of statistics and facts,

political, commercial and geographical, which we should otherwise have had to collect from widely scattered sources.... No pains have been spared in preparing the astronomical and nautical tables, they have been carefully revised, and may be received with confidence; it is well got up, and in a readable and useful form. – Daily Southern Cross.

1864. – Chapman's New Zealand Almanac for the year just commenced is one of the best productions of the kind in the Australian Colonies; the contents embrace a large amount of useful information, and is exceedingly well printed... affording much information as to the physical condition and existing political and social elements of the Colony; its completeness and general utility give the publication claims to extensive support. – Sydney Morning Herald. The most compendious and carefully compiled work of the kind published in New Zealand. – New Zealand Herald. We may fairly assume that the New Zealand Almanac has taken a permanent hold on the Colony, and is looked upon as the leading publication of its class The publisher has had many difficulties to contend with which are altogether unknown or only partially encountered by the compilers of similar publications elsewhere.... As a book of useful information on New Zealand affairs, it is the best published. – Daily Southern Cross.

1865. – We congratulate Mr. Chapman on the success that has attended his perseverence and industry in carrying out, almost without assistance, his original project of establishing an annual publication which should become a standard of reference in the Colony, and an authority on all matters appertaining to New Zealand abroad, the task which the publisher set before him in the infancy of the Colony, so to speak, has been fully realized. The present year's Almanac is a decided improvement on all preceding issues of the same publication, and it is likewise incomparably superior to anything of the same kind that we have seen coming from the Southern provinces... it is in the strict sense of the term a New Zealand almanac... with special information relative to the various provinces, with a copiousness not found elsewhere. – Daily Southern Cross.

1866. – It has attained, during the seven years it has been published, the character of being the most reliable authority of the kind issued in the Colony, as well as the most compendious... the present number is superior to its predecessors. – New Zealand Herald.

1867. – We welcome with pleasure the issue of the first and best of New Zealand Almanacs, and congratulate Mr. Chapman on the success that has attended his persevering efforts to provide a standard work of reference for the colony... The contents of this neat volume have been in former years, and doubtless will be again, unblushingly pirated by the projectors of more pretentious publications... Considering the difficulties Mr. Chapman has to contend against. His New Zealand Almanac for 1867 does him credit. – Daily Southern Cross. The present number is the eighth, and during the seven years in which it has been published it has attained the character of being the most reliable authority of the kind issued in the colony. ... The book is well known... The present number is superior to its predecessors, and is well and neatly got up. – New Zealand Herald.

1868. – As our readers are well aware, we have found it to be our duty from year to year to speak in most flattering terms of this complete work of its kind, and it is very gratifying to find that the Almanac now published is equally worthy of commendation... And for its multifarious contents we have not seen it excelled in New Zealand or the sister colonies. – Daily Southern Cross.

1869. – Appears to be an improvement upon that of 1868, and in all respects a useful, accurate, and comprehensive compendium... carefully and judiciously

compiled.... Mr. Chapman may be congratulated upon the manner in which he has progressed with the times as evinced by this almanac. – Evening News... Tear after year his almanac has continued to improve in the matter of arrangement, accuracy and the comprehensive nature of its contents.... Mr. Chapman's aim seems to have been to combine the greatest possible amount of useful information within the smallest possible limits, and in this he has succeeded admirably. To those engaged in commerce or in the shipping trade the almanac cannot fail to be immensely useful. – Daily Southern Cross.

The Auckland Provincial Almanac and Goldfields Directory

Published annually, price 6d., contains a Description, with Statistics, of the principal Towns of the Province, including Auckland, Shortland and Graham's Town Goldfields Official Directory, Regulations and Fees, Mineral Wealth of the Province, Signals, Postage Rates, Stamp Duties, Customs Tariff, Itinerary, New Kitchen, Fruit, Flower Garden and Greenhouse Calendar, &c

The New Zealand Magazine,

Literary, Scientific and Miscellaneous, with several new original papers, forming the first volume of 256 pages. Contents: – Sketches of the Past Generation of Maories, Taniwha of Coromandel, and Puke Hina, a Legend of Mount Eden, near Auckland, the History of New Zealand and A Visit to the Greenstone Country, by C. H. – New Zealand Fruit and Vegetable Garden, the Cultivation of Asparagus, Rhubarb, the Strawberry, the Soil, and the Pruning of Fruit Trees, by D. H. – On the Establishment of a University in Auckland, and Translations from Horace, by J. G. – Windsor Castle, and Earthquakes and their Phenomena, by E. B. D. – New Zealand Stock and Tillage Farm, the Cultivation and Management of the Potato, Hints on Pastures and Hay and Haymaking, by J. M. – The Plague Struck Town, New Zealand Wars and their Chronicles, Nights by the Camping Fire, Peter's Story, the Rolling Stone, Change, and Editorial Corner, by H. H. L. – To Marie, the Warrior, Kuhuki and his two Wives, by C. 0. B. D. – First Experiences in New Zealand, by T. K. – Preface, and New Zealand, by R. J. O – A Few Words about the Trees and Woods of New Zealand, by J. D. – The Geology and the Geological Age of New Zealand, by R. T. – Up among the Maories, by G. L. – Life Sketches, by O. H. – Ye Men of '54, by late C. W. – The Stars, by A. T. G. – Killing the Maori Monster Hotupoku. – A Domestic Portrait. – Geological Curiosities. – A Whimbamper. – New Zealand Forests. – The Darien Expedition. – The Closest Shave in My Life. – Sir Walter Scott. – Scene at a Fancy Bazaar. – The Aborigines of Australia. – Advice. – Apple Blight. – Christian Liberty. – Let us Alone. – New Zealand Proverbs, &c.

G. T. CHAPMAN,

BOOKSELLER AND STATIONER,

Has pleasure in bringing before the public the following branches, carried on by him in connection with his business in Queen-street: –

The Manufacture of Account Books. – All sizes of Mercantile Account Books, as Journals, Lodgers, Cash, Day, Letter, Invoice, Minute, and Guard Books, if not in stock, will be made to order, with machine or hand made paper – medium, demy, post or foolscap, folio, quarto, or octavo – ruled, paged, and indexed, on the shortest notice, by first-class workmen.

The Ruling of Paper by Machinery. – Account Sales, Account Current, Sermon, Music Paper, &c., ruled to any pattern, in black, blue, red, or fancy coloured inks.

Engraving: and Copper-plate Printing. – Visiting Cards, Wedding Cartas, Crests, Initials, &c, engraved and printed in the best style with despatch, and at reasonable prices.

Lithographic Printing in black, bronze, and colours. – Charts, Maps, Plans, Circulars, Music, Views, Show Cards, Window Tickets, Bottle Labels, Copies of Photographs, Pencil Sketches or Drawings of Houses, Estates, or Scenery. The writing and printing in this department cannot be excelled in Auckland.

Letter-press Printing. – Circulars, Hand-bills, Posters, Law, Mercantile, and Customs' Forms, Lectures, Sermons, Essays, Speeches, Pamphlets, Periodicals, Books, and every description of Letter-press Printing on the shortest notice.

Miscellaneous Bookbinding. – Pamphlets, Books, Music, Portfolios, Albums, Fern Books, Invoice Books, &c, in every stylo of binding, in paper, cloth, goat, sheep, roan, rough or smooth calf, morocco, or velvet. The very best workmanship and finish, with moderate charges.

Paper-cutting, Perforating, Numbering, and Paging. – Paper or Cards cut to any size; Cheque Books, Receipt Books, &c, perforated; and Books and Papers numbered or paged consecutively, alternately, or the number repeated two or three times from 1 to 9, 999.

Printing and Publishing. – Authors or Compilers may have net cost of Printing, Binding, and publishing Lectures, Sermons, Pamphlets, Periodicals, Books, &c, &c.

CHAPMAN'S LIBRARY.

This old established Circulating Library is the only place in Auckland where you can always have access to the principal Publications, Novels, Histories, Biographies, Voyages, Travels, Magazines, &c.

Chapman's Library was started fourteen years ago as The Auckland Library, and is the oldest, the largest, the most popular, and the cheapest Circulating Library in Auckland.

Terms of Subscription: – For one volume at a time, which can be exchanged at pleasure, or for two volumes at a time, which can be exchanged once a week, per quarter Five Shillings. For each additional volume at a time. Two Shillings and Sixpence extra per quarter. These liberal terms place this Library within the reach of all classes.

Library Catalogues and Priced Catalogues of Books withdrawn from circulation, and for sale, may be had on application at

CHAPMAN'S LIBRARY,

QUEEN-STREET, AUCKLAND.

Printed by WILLIAM ATKIN, High-street, Auckland.

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