POOR TURNIP AND RAPE.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1435, 9 May 1912, Page 8

POOR TURNIP AND RAPE.

CROP AND STOCK GOSSIP. As far as the turnip and rape crops could be seen during a ride through to Wang.mui recently, says our travelling correspondent, they appeared to be surprisingly jioor. This is the more remarkable as tlie decidedly net season has been just what this class of farm crops re'quired, and inmost places it has been tlie main factor in the generally fair to good crops. One pleasing feature this season is liio practically entire absence of blight and fly. Where they have made an appearance the attacks hove been so mild tnat they do not count, ispecially when ouo recalls the disastrous elleuts which were the lot of turnips last year, l-'arin-injT is » huge gamble; you never know where you are. Some farmers now tell mo that if they could choose between a cold, wet, and sunless summer like we have had this year, and the long hot and dry period, wit.i its Migjits anil pest.i thrown in, they would prefer (lie latter every time.

Stock arc not doing well, more particuJarly .young sheep. .1 know of one .-tud breeder in Hangitikci, a Koiiiney man, who is giving h'.s young sheep ■ every nttcution, changing them as often as. possible, putting them on n break of turnips, giving them hay, chaff, and peas, keeping them on tho move all the time, and still, as he told me only Ihe other day, they are far from satisfactory. The one thing, wherever 1 go, is that there is grass everywhere, but it is so soft and watery that it is of little use far sheep. As 1 got nearer Wnngnnui 1 saw a paddock of rape on "ilarnngai," .Mr. Allan Cameron's property, and on my tolling him it was by far the best 1 had' seen between .Marton and Wanganui, he agreed that it was very satisfactory, gome- of his neighbours were, to put it'mildly, sceptical about him getting a "take," u>, the crop was not sown till January 10. However, as it. turned out, the season was all in its favour. Had it been a. dry season, of course, it would have done no good at all.

Over and over again I have heard first one and then another remark on the marvellous sight in the Marton district to seo the large numbers of stacks all over the country, and though 1 knew this to be the case, still, when 1 rode through and actually saw them (and this, of course, only from the road), it was indeed a lnarveiloussijhf. 1 was chatting with a rouplo of Wanganui farmnrs on sale dny, nnd ono of them, a Woslmere man, su'.ii he had just been down to fcildiug. "Man." ho said, "what are yon going to do with all the crop at -.Marton this year? I have never seen such a sight in my life, and I've been farming over forty years. I wouldn't have believed it if anybody had told me, and if I hadn't seen it myself. Why, there's not the machinery in' tho place to deal with it." Thcso remarks are pretty true. Look where you may, you see, or did, rows upon rows of wol'lhuilt stacks as far as the eye could reach.

I ihe question of chaffculting and threshI ing plants is a serious one this year. It is a fact that there are not sufficient to dent with the stacks, lu fact, the. position is so acute that I know of three farmers who arc Retting separate plants of their own. And really you can't wonder at it. lor instance, a man sells, say, a hundred tons ot chair, doiiverv earlv as possible. JJe is on lonter-hook-s all the time, his -merchant is continually rimjiug him up to know when lie is g'oing "to begin delivery, next hu hunts un the own«r of the cutting plant, and finds he is nlreadv six weeks fcenind time. This delay is still further accentuated by wet weather setting in, and at Inst, driven to desperation he says: "Hang it all, I will get a plant ot my own, and then I can cut or thresh when I please." Of course, tin's could only occur in a district like liangitikei, where one sees crops of up to five hundred acres on a single farm. A traveller bv tho Main Irunk express told mo'the other (lay that lie had no idea there was anvthiiiK like it in the North Island Between Cliff Boat! Station and Marton, only 2J miles, he had counted considerably over a hundred stacks. 1 am sure if ho Had said .two hundred ho would have been nearer the, mark, us one paddock had orty stacks, and another over that number. Prices are not so bad either. I have heard of several big lots being sold at .£3 UK, which on a neavy crop should come out well on the right side.