SOUTHERN MARKETS

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 158, 29 March 1919, Page 10

SOUTHERN MARKETS

Br TeleeraDh-Press Association. Christchurch, March 28. There is no chango in the position regarding wheat. A large amount of Tuscan -wheat is offering by growers, Inn. millers are not purchasing unless it is an extra choice- lot. ? The oats market is lifeless so tar as actual business between growers aim merchants is concerned. Otters are being made for oats, but growers are not prepared to accept them. Offers range generally from 3s. to 3s. 4d. at country stations,' but, except in odd cases, less than 3s. 6d. will not be accepted. The demand for oatsheaf chaff is conlined to local requirements, and for shipment to the West Coast. It is not cxpecteo.- that there will be any qtrery from the North Island for some time to come, as local supplies are good. The barley market has come down, thecrop having' turned out much larger than; was expected, and ss. 6d. at country stations for prime malting is now the best niter buyers can make. -Previously up to 7s. 3d. at country stations had been Thero is no change m the potato market, £5 being the price offered at country stations for.present or forward delivery. It is expected that the general avrage of the main crop will be about six to seven tons per acre. Odd crops ■may go as high as fourteen or fifteen' tons- per acre. ~ ■ ' I There is nothing doing in the grass sew.- market,'and cocksfoot is. unsaleable except at a low figure. ELECTRIFIED SEEDS IN GREAT BRITAIN !, During the 1918 harvest in Great Britain some remarkable results were obtained from "electrified seeds." Mr. H. E. I'ry, an electrical engineer in Dorset, England, has developed a process of stimulating seeds so that they yield healthier and moro prolific crops. The process consists of soaking the seeds in a solution of common salt, sending a current of electricity through the solution, and subsequently drying the seeds. Trials have been made with electrified, wheat, barley, and oats in comparison with non-electrified, seeds from the sanie sack, and sown on adjoining ground. The electrified seeds' threw, up more straws, which, were so much stronger than the normal that, they withstood storms -which - laid the' non-electrified harvest low. The gain in.; vield per acre varied in different' parts of the country from five to nearly twenty, bushels per acre for oafs, and from about five to seven bushels for wheat. Barley, shoved an increase of sixteen bushels in another recorded case. Twenty-seven farmers in South Devon realised an aver* age gain per acre of .£4 135., after de-ducting-the cost of treatment, which is . only-a few shillings uer sack. Thus the, latest British contribution to the promising science of electvoeulture is being investigated- by the sub-committee of the Board of' Asmculturb of. Great Britain, which is making a scientific study of tho influence of electricity on plant life.