HARVEST JOTTINGS.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1072, 17 February 1883, Page 3

HARVEST JOTTINGS.

Mr J. C. Firth, at present on a visit to Canterbury, writes to us as follows Having recently bad the opportunity of visiting the Oaraaru, Timaru, and Ashburton districts, I have taken a few harvest notes, which are at your disposal. 1. the inhabitants of those fertile districts may well be proud of them. It would, I think, be difficult to surpass them in any part of the world for their grain growing capacities. 2. Everywhere under the influence of a fine season, the golden harvest covers the ground in the richest abundance, the yields of, wheat being estimated to

run from 30 to 50 bxisbels, and of oats from 40 to 70 bushels per acre. 3. In all the districts cutting is about finished. In the Ashburton district about half the crops are still abroad ; at Timaru perhaps two-thirds; and at Oainaru nearly the whole of the crop is still in stocks, some of it looking a good deal weathered, though I could not find a sprouted grain anywhere. 4. This system of leaving the bulk of the harvest in stock to avoid the small expense of stacking is a very bad one for both quality and color of the grain, and may one of these days, perhaps this very season, turnout a dangerous one. 5. Should a few days’ rain catch the wheat all abroad as it now is, the grain will certainly be sprouted, be unfit for the English or any other market, will not fetch more than half or two-thirds its present value, and will entail a ruinous loss upon the farmers and the colony. The wonder to me is, that in view of such contingencies, any farmer can sleep in his bed. Probably the fear of nor’westers has had something to do with the mad rush to cut everything down, leaving the ingathering to take its chance. Would it not have been wiser to have cut dowa less, and secured more? To have run the risk of losing a small percentage of the crop by shaking, rather than to run the risk of damaging the whole by heavy rain ? 6. This season, ev*n yet, may teach farmer* in this part of the colony that ‘ stacking ’ ought to to follow * cutting ’ a* closely as possible. —Press.