DROUGHT IN THE SOUTH.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1005, 21 December 1910, Page 4

DROUGHT IN THE SOUTH.

• , SERIOUS STATE OF .U'FAIRS.. - "I have lived there for 35 years, and this is tho driest and. worst season we have ever had,"'/said Mr. Thomas Jackman, an Oamaru farmer, to a Dominion representative; yesterday.. Tho visitor, who owns a, property : eight miles 'from town, states .that they have had practically no rain in his quarter for about four months, and every blade of grass has been burnt up long ago, but fortunately his '10 ■acres of potatoes were in virgin Country, and he expects to get a fair crop—a good one if rain falls soon. Others have not fared so well, and people may 'confidently look'forward to a serious shortage of potatoes, as the whole country from Oamaru to Christchurch has. suffered severely .from drought. There will be no wheat from the whole of the district for export, as in most'cases the crops have been fed off to keep the cattle alive,, and many hundred of head liave had to be sold at a disadvantage. The district was now • almost bare of sheep: Some farmers who paid as much as 225. were forced to sell for 10s. to those who could accommodate tho sheep in green country. Mr. Jackman said there would bo no wheat, no oats, and no chaff from the district. They already had had to get up chaff ,from Invercargill. Reverting to potatoes, 1 he said they were now importing supplies from tho North Island—a thing unprecedented, as far as he was aware. Under such circumstances, . the whole of the district would be'in difficulties for winter feed. On some farms two attempts had been made to sow- rape, but it had come to nothing, and had had to bo- ploughed in. -At Nepara, a -large settlement 10 miles from Oamaru, water was being conveyed to tho settlers in tanks by rail. Vegetables were being imported to Oamaru from the south.

Mr. Jackman referred to the rainmaking experiments, but could not say whether the explosion of charges of guncotton had been successful. One charge was fired on Round Hill, near his place, and nothing had resulted, but rain had followed an explosion at Kowra, some eight miles from Duntroon. It was a cloudy day on which the experiment was made, and he was inclined to think that the explosion was responsible for the shower.