PRICE OF LAND

Opotiki News, Volume I, Issue 73, 22 August 1938, Page 2

PRICE OF LAND

AUSTRALIA COMPARED

“TOO DEAR IN N.Z.”

“If a. man had, say, £IO,OOO to invest in land he could buy up land on the Darling Down's, Victoria, with greater confidence than he could take up a farm in. New Zealand,” said Mr Eric Rutherford, of “Inverness” station, Canterbury, who returned recently from a nine weeks’ visit to the Commonwealth.

“The land there appears to have black soil as good as is found in New Zealand and can be purchased for about £lO an acre,” he said when interviewed iii "Wellington. “There is no doubt that laud in New l Zealand is far too dear.” Header harvesters were used there, Mr Rutherford continued, and farmers were quite satisfied with a yield or 30 bushels to the acre, which, of course, would iiot> pay in the Dominion.

Mr Rutherford said lie liad spoken with some pf the leading men in the wool industry in Australia and the general impression was that prices would drop during the coming season. There was not sufficient wool carried over from the past season to affect the sales. As was the case in Now Zealand, growers had been forced to meet the market.