HEAT WAVE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 208, 22 January 1913, Page 8

HEAT WAVE.

BAD EFFECT ON CANTERBURY CROPS. Christchurch, January 20. Everybody is talking about the weather. There have been an unusually large number of scorching nor'-west days during the last month, and we would probably have to go bapk many years to find a parallel to the heat wave of the last three days. For three days it has been blowing from the north-west a hot blast that shrivels everything, and raises clouds of dust. With dust everywhere, and a temperature touching 90 for hours at a time, Christchurch has been a very Unpleasant place to live in. This evening it grew cooler, but at the time of writing the eagerly-awaited southerly has not put in an appearance, and the temperature of the room in which this is written is stifling. Aueklanders state emphatically that the much dreaded heat of Auckland is a circumstance to this heat wave. The dry spell and hot winds are interfering seriously with farming in some of the North Canterbury districts. Crops are ripening too soon, and the weight of the harvest is likely to be much below what it should be. The winds, too, are interfering with the lighter seeded crops. Growth seems almost to have stopped, and even where things seem brightest the eye is deceived. A reporter went over what was apparently a marvellous strike- of turnips. It proved wonderful in leaf only, for the roots were amazingly small in proportion to the green. Of course food values have lessened, and in some cases all the rape has had to be eaten off. If the rain dees not come within the next little while, there will remain little for the farmers except to make the best of •.aings, and write off the season, which began so well, as one of disappointment.