LINSEED GROWING IN THE WAIRAU VALLEY.

Marlborough Express, Volume XXVII, Issue 26, 31 January 1891, Page 3

LINSEED GROWING IN THE WAIRAU VALLEY.

4> A VISIT TO MR BISHELL'S (By our Travelling Reporter.) There's nothing m the papers, never is according to some people, yet it is estonishing how they growl when the Express boys forget them, or the post misses. Sometimes however there are items not strictly news, " Scissors and pasts " we journalists call them, which are of equal importance to anything absolutely local we could get hold of. It was one such unpretending paragraph which led up to my making a trip out to Fairhall on Thursday to Mr Bißhell's farm. Some time last year Mr Bishell saw m the Express a paragraph which gave particulars of a Dunedin firm ■who were willing to supply linseed _ free to anyone who would grow it, deducting the seed from the crop, which they also agreed to purchase at 5s 6d a bushel, provided a thousand bushels were grown. This seemed to him a businesslike offer, and being a practical man Mr Bishell simply cut out the paragraph, noted the address and wrote to Dunedin. The result is that to-day he is threshing the crop from 48 acres of linseed, and getting first class returns. But let as get baok a bit. Mr BishelPs is A MODEIi FARM and having heard about it before one was on the look ont for new ideas, and good farming before getting there. There are m all some 230 acres almost all of which has been under crop this year. 50 acres roughly speaking m linßeed, 50 m barley, 9 m potatoes, and the balance m peaa, wheat and oats. The barley has mostly been threshed out resulting very well, and it has already been sold at 3s a bushel cash. The linseed is sold, as stated above; the peas which are grown for Kimno and Blair of Dunadin for seed purposes are also sold. They are Little Gems aud Veitch'a Perfection, and have been threshed by the flail. The potatoes (Brown Bivera) we inspected, and found looking healthy, with well developed tubers at the > roots. Looking round the granary, which is a commodious building, we found stacked therein a considerable portion of this season's crop, and some of last year's beans, for which Mr Bishell had a good market, with a demand for more this year if he grew any. Bound the farmhouse were the customary garden and orchard, piggery, stables, fowl shed, dove cots, &c, all looking m good order, and m the machine sbed wa found one of the reapers and binders Stowed away, and a patent machine of Mr Bishell's own contrivance for taking the Vetches out" 'of wheat. At present it has not reached the proper stage, owing to some defects m the machinery, but the idea seems practical, and some day should be properly worked out. As it was THE LINSEED we had* gone out to see we had better be getting there. In a paddock near the Benwiok New Road we found Mr BishelPs Bon busy with a Howard reaper and binder, a make Mr B. swears by, hard at work catting a standing crop of as fine linseed as one need wish to see, albeit somewhat dirty •with oats left from a very heavy crop last leason and "hen fat," which is said to grow best on good soil, m which it shows better taste than the abomination known as "stinkweed," which whether on thastoney bed of the Taylor River, or Mr BishelPs richest land seems to prosper and no more. The land haa all been drained with timber and manuka drains, and though even yet at times swampy it is now much better ihan before, and being excellent m quality it grows first class crops. It ia calculated that this year's linseed will average 40 to 50 bushels to the Sere, and from a small patch of oats growing just beyond the first paddock of linseed we were told an average of 70 bushels had this season been obtained. The crop being cut was too thick for the machine to make more than a foot cut, the peculiarity of linseed preventing it being taken m as large breadths as oats or wheat. The height was fairly even, and the heads well filled, though m patches here and there • owing to variations m the ground it was thinner. In a field further on, and closer 1 to the Middle Road, we found Mr Patohett'B thresher at work, threshing out some of a crop cut a few day's ago. The sample coming out was very clean seed, and having seen a good deal of this same crop harvested before, we can say that it is equal m body and color to any that Messrs Kempthorne and Prosser, who are, we believe, the largest buyers m the colony, are likely to receive. This is the first time that linseed has been grown on such a scale m this district, and it surprises us that the small farmers here have been so long m findiDg out that it payß to grow this crop. This offer of 5a 6d a bushel has been m existence for at least ten years, yet this is the first time the crop has been tried here. It does not require much figuring up to see how it will pay. Supposß Mr Bishel's figures are correct, and he grows 2000 bushels from his 40 acres. He has a guaranteed price uf 68 6d a bushel for it- That comes to £550, or something over £10 an acre. That ought to pay well enough to induce others to follow the lead now taken.