WELCOME RAIN.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 458, 29 March 1890, Page 4

WELCOME RAIN.

EFFECTS OF THE DROUGHT. Auckland, March 22. Last night s rain will be most welcome to the farmers all through our country districts, and if it only continues lor a few days they will be done an incalculable amount of good. The late dry weather, continued since Christmas almost, has injured farmers severely in every department of agriculture. In conversation with Mr Reynolds, of Reynolds and Company, that gentleman stated to a reporter of this paper, that one of the best gauges of the eflects of' the dry season on the farming interest in the Waikato is the supply of milk to the butter factories. At his factories, there has this season been a most serious falling off, more serious than he has ever before experienced. In ordinary seasons the supply at this time of year should not be much less than that in spring, whereas now he has to record a falling ofi in milk of quite 50 per cent. In the whole of the Waikato districts the country has been thoroughly parched, and such a dry season has been hitherto urn known. In many places water has had to bo conveyed long distances in casks. The slight rain of last week had but little effect, and unless the present rain continues for some days it will only be as a drop in the ocean.

As another instance of the severe effects ;■ of the drought it may be mentioned that f all the early sown turnips have taken the a blight so badly that the crop is almost a total failure; while the only chance for those sown later is that a fair amount of rain may fall. Should rain still keep off, the outlook is very serious, as the nights being longer and colder the grass will have little chance to spring, and the live stock on the farms will be with difficulty sustained through the winter. The cattle and sheep sales of late have been very dull, owing to the farmers’ fear that they will have no winter feed. .Owing to the b@d prospects for the butter supply, caused by the fjrpught, Messrs Reynolds and Co. have been cohsiderjpg the advisability of offering apremium to the farmers pn the arranged price for their winter supply, of milk. By so doing they think the farmers might be led to increase the supply by dry feeding their cattle, a plan which would have other beneficial effects in improving the land, while the present selling apd carting away impoverishes it. From , the above it will be clear what a blessing to our farmers a good fad .of rafe would be. Without the farmers being successful, the townsmen must suffer, so that it is to the interest of all that the dry weather should be broken up. -Fortunately, it appears to-day as if that welcome event has happened.