The Globe. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 31, 1875.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 250, 31 March 1875, Page 2

The Globe. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 31, 1875.

The present would seem a favorable opportunity for reviewing the past harvest season, and as far as may be, for indulging in speculation as to the chances and capabilities that our community—producers and consumers—have, of reaping benefit from the result. To begin with, we cannot altogether agree with those who regard the low price of wheat (low in comparison with the last few years) as an altogether unmitigated, woe to the farmer. If not fortunati nimium the firm of Agricohe (and Co) have this year a good many things to alleviate their sorrows in this particular regard. Let us try to show that there is some hope that the wind will be considerably tempered to this lamb, shorn or not as may be. Never has a more bountiful or better conditioned wheat harvest been secured in Canterbury. The Government returns show a very perceptibly larger yield per acre than in any year of which we have record in our brief agricultural annals. L»w though the price may be, aud with but small chance of an immediate change for the better, let us consider, or rather let the farmers consider (tor they may perhaps think themselves more particularly interested), how many items for good may be noted to set against this pestilent three shillings a bushel. In the first place, this price means cheap bread all over the civilised world. Of course, we shall be told that it is not Canterbury, not even New Zealand that it is in fault; that we could continue to suffer the visitation of a heavy yield annually, and not faint; but that America and Europe (Mother England being the chief offender) are to blame. This querulous view of the matter, should it be advanced would call to mind one of Leech's cartoons in an early number of Punch, John Bull in the typical costume of a top-booted farmer is wiping a troubled brow in a field cumbered with wheat sheaves, and to the sympathising Britannia who enquires the cauße of his woe, quoth John (if our memory serves us) "Why I've such a sight of corn that danged if I knows where to put un' " ; a sentiment not shared by a delighted group of rustics who beat of all can realise the pregnant meaning of those two short words " cheap bread." Sentiment is of course wholly out of place in trade, but we are sure that none of our prosperous fellow colonists can be. sorry that our less fortunate brethren of our antipodes are for once in smaller jeopardy of " hard necessity " than has so often been their lot. To endeavour to be more practical, —we may safely count as a valuable item on the profit side the very satisfactory prices that stock, especially beef and pork, are likely to command during the coming season. ~When beef is spoken of as likely to represent as much as 60s per cwt, and with no bacon at present in the

market, we cannot, we confess, join in fears for our farming friends welfare, nor pity their impending fate: and though sheep are not fetching late prices wool continues steady, and there is always " the pot" to fall back upon. Here we think we may reasonably congratulate the farmers on the great good sense and foresight which so many of them have shown in sowing large breadths of turnips. On the plains especially, this crop will more than amply repay the care and expense attend on its cultivation. ISot only in the increased number and superior condition of the stock, but in the vast benefit to the soil from the growth and feeding off of the roots. Another and perhaps the greatest advantage, though an indirect one, that the country will reap from a bountiful, though low-priced yield of grain, is the stimulus that will be given to good farming, and to the invention and use of tima-and-labour saving machinery especially at harvest time. Improved cultivation and a large use of improved implements should enable us, with our advantages of soil and climate, to compete with any grain producing country in the globe, and with an almost certainty of heavy crops, to accept a year of low prices with equanimity.