GRAIN AND POTATOES.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXX, Issue 5502, 18 November 1929, Page 4

GRAIN AND POTATOES.

DOMINION ESTIMATES. GRAIN AVERAGE DECREASES. As in previous years, cards were sent out by post'from the Census and Statistics Office at Wellington to grain and potato growers throughout the Dominion, asking them to state what areas they had sown or planted, or intended to sow or plant, in wheat, oats, barley and potatoes this season. Grain. The following returns were rendered in reply : Estimated area, 1929-30, wheat 234,000 acres (North Island 2,650, South Island 231,850), a decrease from the 1928-29 season of. 23,373 acres. Oats 275,000 acres (North Island 15,500, South Island 259,500), a decrease of 8,133 acres. Barley, 20,500 acres (North Island 1,700, South Island, 18,800), an increase of 660 acres. Of the wheat, Tuscan, and Longberry seemed to be the favourite, 168,519 acres being sown with that species. White with 137,515 acres was the 'choice in oats. Canterbury shows a considerable lead in both wheat and oats, the figures being 186,650 acres of the former, and 126,204 acres of the latter. Potatoes. The area estimated as planted, or to be planted with potatoes during the 1929-30 season was given as 22,600 acres, an increase of 1,296 over the previous year. The North Island acreage was returned as 4,900, a drop of 51, and the South 17,700, a rise of 1,347. The Government report says that an average of the last five seasons (viz., 5.49 per acre) the total from the estimated area shown for 1929-30 should approximate 124,000 tons, as against 123,607 tons last season. Only holdings of one acre and over outside borough boundaries are covered by the figures. In the case of potatoes a fair amount is undoubtedly grown on the smaller holdings, and on holdings situated within boroughs.