The Nelson Evening Mail. SATURDAY, JANUARY 8, 1870.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume V, Issue 7, 8 January 1870, Page 2

The Nelson Evening Mail. SATURDAY, JANUARY 8, 1870.

As harvest timß comes rouud once more, it is natural to enquire what are the prospects of our farming population, aqd up to the present time, we are glad to say a favorable answer may be returned to this enquiry. The late continuance of wet, muggy weather has certainly been detrimental to the hay harvest, but its effects otj the "rowing crops have been of quite an opposite tendency. Never do we remember to have seen the Wairneas looking so flourishing as at the present time, and everywhere the crops are holding out prospects of a magnificent yield, barley in particular appears to have done unusually well, and will, this harvest, produce far heavier crops per acre thin any previous year; whiat and oats too, though not in the same degree as barley, are looking well, and the eyes of farmers must be gladdened by the noble prospects afforded by their waving fields of corn of every description. We said that everywhere the crops promised well, but this is hardly correct; unfortunately there are still instances of two methods, (if they cau be called by such a name) of farming, which at one time were only too common in Nelson, but which are gradually being superseded by a more careful and legitimate system. We refer on the one hand to slovenly farming, by which we mean a careless manner of tilling the ground — one ploughing, no matter how rough and unfriable the land may have proved, has frequently been deemed all that was necessary before committing the seed to the ground, and there are some of our producers who have not yet learnt by experience — or at all events they have not shown by their practice that they have done so — that this penny wise and pound foolish system is the most ruinous they can possibly pursue. There is also the greedy farmer, who, year after year, crops the same piece of land with the same kind of grain, and without returning to it in any shape whatever the nutriment he is annually drawiugfrom it. Let him compare his own misserable crops with those raised by the more generous, but wiser cultivator, and ask himself which of the two systems answers the best, and whose granaries are likely to be most richly stocked after the coming harvest. There has always seemed to us to be a defect in our farming districts which ought to be remedied with as little delay as possible, namely, a great scarcity of reaping machines. It may be that the holdings are too small, and that it would not pay a farmer to purchase the necessary implements for his own use, but it has often been suggested in our hearing that three or four might club together and purchase between them, what each, individually, is unable to afford. IVlany crops in the Waimea have at various times been seriously damaged, if not entirely lost, by the want, such facilities for cutting them. It is a matter of congratulation that the flourishing aspect of the grain crops, to which we have referred, is not confined to Nelson, but that from all' parts of New Zealand we bear the same glowing accounts. At Tiraaru, one of the largest grain producing districts in the colony, the estimated yield is 30 bushels of wheat per acre, anfl, should this estimate prove a correct one, there will be a large export trade from this part of the ecu n try, the breadth of land in crop being as follows:— Wheat, 8708 acres ; Oats, 6241 acres J

Barley, 860 acres, Throughout the whole of the Otago and Canterbury provinces there are promises of crops almost equally fine, so that this is likely to prove a prosperous year for that important section of our community — the farmers — and most earnestly do we hope that they will be favored with fine weather for harvesting the fruits of their year's labor. In Adelaide, the greatest wheat country in the whole the of Australian colonies, the yield was estimated two months ago at eight bushels per acre, but we learn by telegram that "a succession of intolerably hot days had seriously damaged the crop, and reduced the average yield by four bushels to the acre." On the authority of the ..yttelton Times W8 may state that four bushels to the acre all over Adelaide would be equivalent to 40,000 tons of flour. From Victoria the accounts are more encouraging, and the following extract from the Melbourne Leader seems to speak of a prosperous present and a hopeful future for the Australian colonies. " The reign of plenty has surely commenced. Bread is down to sixpence the four-pound loaf. The past season has been one most productive in all market gardeners' produce. The rains fell at the right time, and from every bovine and ovine district most glowing reports are furnished as to the grazing capabilities of the runs. If now the price of bread be low, what may we expect when the magnificent harvest with which we are blessed shall be gathered in ? The old proverb is that wheat rises against the sickle ; and farmers in the old country look for an increase of price just before reaping commences. This year, with us the rule is the contrary. In the face of the abundant harvest that soon our reaping and threshing-machines will be at work upon, our prices are falling. Victoria almost deserves to have applied to her Douglas Jerrold's joke. Of her land it may be said that if you tickle it with a hoe it will laugh with a harvest. The time is not far distant when Australia will rank first among the granaries of the world. What Egypt with her Nile enriching power was to Rome, we shall be to the vast hives beyond us. The sunny skies of Australia have influences in them that cannot be found in cooler climes. Our wheat, our wine, our wool, our meat and tallow, even without our gold, promise that for many a year we shall be one, and by no means the least important, of the store-houses for older and less favored nations."