DROUGHT IN THE SOUTH.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2156, 12 August 1907, Page 3

DROUGHT IN THE SOUTH.

RAIN-MAKING EXPERIMENTS.' Press Association. OAMARU, August 10. Over £2OO has been subscribed torn rds rain-producing experiments. Operations will be started directly experts arrive. The Mail's special correspondent states the Rev. Mr. Bates, bead of the Meteorological Dopartnent, will superintend the experiments, and ieaves Wellington tonight.

A GOOD DOWNPOUR. OAMARU, August lit Heavy rain, which appears to have been general .throughout the district, fell on Friday night and early on daturday morning. The crops and grass will be greatly benefited. As a consequence farmers in town to-day •vere hopeful. Although fine to-day, the weather is still threatening.

LOCAL FARMER’S VIEWS. I Visitors to the South are amazed I at the extent of the drought aud its I far-reaching effects. Mr. T. E. Sherwood, of AVaiapu, who has just reclamed from a brief tjip South, says .bat we in this favored district can nave but a faint conception of what a drought paeans. The country is abI iolutelv parched, and many fires have occurred, adding to the general devastation. There has been a littlo rain about Christchurch and north of chat centre, but from the Rakaia River southwards as far as Dunedin, the Island appears to be absolutely destitute of green herbage. Many jf the plantations alongside the railway line have been burnt out by the recent fires. In places the stock has had to be removed or sacrificed to save it from starvation, and elsewhere farmers have had to eke out the supply of turnips and mangels to the cattle and sheep. Mr. Sherwood was informed that during the last twelve months- Central Otago had only six inches of rainfall, and a farmer at Longbeach, North Ashburton, . told him that such a season was unprecedented in all his experience. Not ->nl” has tlie feed for stock withered, but the drought seriously affects the cropping, of which there is very little being undertaken. Farmers are unable to plough the ground, hardened by frosts, and they are anxiously awaiting some copious downpour in order to get the plough to work. Glorious sunny weather and cloudless ikies prevail, but the people are too ippreliensive of the results to appreciate such conditions. Before Mr. Sherwood left there was somo speculation as to the efficacy of firing canions into the skies to induce cloud formation and rain, and on other rain-making experiments. This proposition lias now materialised, and hough the results in other parts of he world have not proved over-suc-cessful, the people are hopeful that it will be effective.