URGENT NEED OF RAIN

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2932, 18 November 1916, Page 12

URGENT NEED OF RAIN

CROPS ALREADY SUFFERING. Many farmers are apprehensive regarding the prospects for the coming season (says a Christchurch correspondent). The rainfall last month was less than three-quarters of an inch, and in September it was less than two inches. • A prominent agriculturist, operating on land which feels the earliest pinch of drought, says that winter oats in many areas unless helped early by soaking rains will prove a failure. . Pastures that have been closely fed are looking brown. In these cases, where the subsoil does not give up its mois-* turo freely, there.is a very early appearance of rust in the wheat, despite i the liberal'rainfall of winter and , spring. The outlook for tho crops in Canterbury, says this authority, is not promising. People from South Canterbury state that matters are no hotter .there, and that the line of demarcation between sufficient moisture and droughty oon- ' ditions is about Palmerston. South, the same as in the two years of disastrous drought in Canterbury.. Artesian wells < near Christohuroh are reported to show i a considerably diminished flow. i A prolonged dry spell and the < smaller,area of land devoted to wheat- i growing this year would have the effect i of shortening the Dominion wheat i

supply, and it. would havo tlio furthc undesirnblo effect of once more rcdn< iug tho wheat arena next season, fo farmors will not contimio to plan wheat unless they seo a roasonabl clianco of a profitable crop.