SOUTHLAND NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 4032, 23 June 1931, Page 15

SOUTHLAND NOTES.

(From Our Own Correspondent.) GOOD WINTER WEATHER. The rough spell experienced a fortnight ago seems to have cleared the air, and since then we have had ideal winter days following frosty nights. Farmers have plenty to growl about just now, but they certainly cannot complain of the condition of their stock as on most farms both sheep and cattle are in firstclass nick to see the winter through. Breeding ewes especially look well, and will not need many turnips to carry them along until the spring. Ploughing is general on both lea and stubble, and the two local ploughing matches are being held early in July, when it is to be hoped a number of fresh competitors will enter the lists, as of late years the old battlers have shown a tendency to give up competing, and young men starting now will get the benefit of their guidance. A sign of the times is the small number of farmers present at district stock sales. A few years ago at this time of year nearly every farmer within miles would attend the local sale, even if only a handful of stock was forward, but now they stay at home unless business compels them to be present. It is too early’ yet to say what effect the Saturday closing will have on the farmer’s trade in Invercargill, but even if trade is bad in town (and it is only recently that some town dwellers woke up to the fact that there is a slump), the change in the closing day cannot be blamed for all the dullness.

DEARER FAT SHEEP. The outstanding feature of the stock markets lately has been the rise in fat sheep of all classes, with fat lambs showing the most pronounced improvement. Buyers have been keen to purchase lambs at prices that in some cases look to be even above schedule rates, and several fair-sized mobs have been bought at from 16s to 17s 6d, figures that, although they do no.t make the growers wealthy in a night, compare favourably with the Ils and 12s quoted at the start of the season. Growers who have been shipping on their own account right through the year will get the full benefit of the rise in London, but it is unfortunate that many farmers were compelled by financial reasons to sell at whatever price they could get, and these are the men who needed the rise to help them to keep going. Fat wethers and ewes are also fetching better prices, but fat cattle have, if anything, gone back in value. The yardings of the latter have not been heavy; in fact, rather the reverse, but butchers state that the demand for beef is poor, and country butchers are practically doing nothing, farmers preparing to kill their own mutton. Any quotations for store stock are more or less guesswork, as no lines are changing hands to establish a basis of value. Many land owners are understocked for the winter, and will likely remain so until the spring, when they will have to be supplied with stock by either their agents or their mortgagees if they are to be given a chance to carry on.

FARM SELLING. A few properties are changing hands, mostly of small acreage, but it is to be feared that the outgoing owners are not leaving with much ready cash to show as a result of the sales. It has always been held, and perhaps not without reason, that land in Southland never experienced the boom seen in the north, and that we kept nearer the productive value than anywhere else in the Dominion. Allowing this to be so, there are plenty of holders of second mortgages in this province who have no earthly hope of ever seeing their money, to say nothing about the interest. Private holders of first mortgages are, in some local cases, not only writing off the interest overdue, but are assisting- their debtors to carry on by means of cash loans rather than take the properties back. The farms being sold are, of course, not realising high prices, and a rough guess would probably be that the money paid now is about half what the owners would have accepted 10 years ago. For a man with a reasonable amount of capital and practical experience of farming there .are cheap farms to be bought in Southland to-day, even if produce remains at low values, and it is noticeable that Southland farmers who were attracted north in the boom years and who bought land there are sorry to-day that ever they left the Sunny South.