WELCOME RAINS

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 239, 29 December 1927, Page 11

WELCOME RAINS

Light Showers Overnight UNSATISFIED FARMERS If the farmer ever smiles —some believe He never does —he displayed that facial expression this morning when he awoke as usual at 4 o’clock (Sidey time) and donned his milking boots and cow-bail morning suit preparatory to the round-up of the herd, and was greeted with soft, fine rain which had been falling since shortly after midnight, and which showed prospects of continuing. The fall, which was very welcome to dried-up pastures and to empty tanks in the country districts, was not of the steady downpour variety that would gladden the heart of the rural occupier, and was not considered of sufficient volume to make any appreciable difference to the crops this morning. However, even the farmer—temperamentally unphilosophical though he is—should be thankful for this small mercy, and greet the wet morning with thankfulness and hopes for more. Yet this is th© expression of one dairyman in the Tamaki district, where the rain was insufficient to fill the tanks: “Well, for all the good that little drop of rain will do, it might have kept fine till after the holidays.” After all, some people are never satisfied! In the fruit-growing districts around Auckland the rain was very welcome, coming as it did after a full month of exceptionally dry weather, but as in other places, it was not of sufficient volume to bring on the fruit to any great extent. Orchards had been feeling the effects of the threatened drought and even though the showers of last evening and to-day are not exceptionally heavy, it is accepted as a likely indication that the break in the dry spell has occurred and more might be forthcoming. “It has at least made the country look clean, and has laid the dust on the roads,” was one philosophical comment reported from the country.