WHEAT GROWING.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1264, 13 November 1884, Page 3

WHEAT GROWING.

TO THE EDITOR. Sib, —I send you a cutting from the Somerset Free Press of September 13ch, which will show the farmers in this district that they must rely entirely upon locat demand for the sale of their corn. A considerable portion of the soil of England roust go out of cultivation. From Edinburgh to London you hear on all sides of considerable tracts of land without tenants. Agents for large landed proprietors in London told me that in their opinion the landlords have by no means seen the worst of the times. I went to England in company with a gentleman who bad been for twenty-five years in the Civil Service in India, and be told me there were millions of acres there where wheat can be grown. India is said to be only three weeks from England, and wages are less there than sixpence a day. Wheat can be landed in England under 3s a bushel. It is thought in England that India will undersell America, C. G. Tripp. Orari Gorge, Woodbury, 10th Nov,, 3 884. FARMING PROSPECTS. Discussing the prospects of farming an agricultural contemporary asks : “ What are fanners to do ? They cannot all take to dairy farming, which pays fairly ; nor Cfin the"y all grow fruit or vegetables. A great deal of the best wheat land is not suilable to permanent pasture, and if it were, to lay the whole country down in orass would produce a social icvolutioii. No doubt, if we can keep our fiocks and herds free from contagious diseases, a great deal may be done in increased breeding and feeding, especially if the system of ensilage proves as successful as its pioneers believe it will be. But if farmers were to turn their farms into meat-producing establishments on a large scale, they would require muefi better security against being rented on their own improvements thau they have at present. It might pay them to grow corn tq feed stock with, and whether they did that or bought cake they would greatly increase tbel'ertility of their farms and rents would almost certainly be raised m consequence. Even at the present crisis one of the . absurdities of the Agricultural Holdings

Act stands out in pm-tinnl-ir prominence in connection Swith the point immediately under discussion. No feeding stuff is as cheap as wheat at present prices, and yit a tenant would liavo no claim to a penny of compensation if lie 'ied his whole crop on his farm ; whereas if he sold the wheat and bought cake or coru with the money he would be entitled to compensation. Farmers are always likely to grow somt) wheat, if only for the use of ih« straw ; and here we may point to another absurdity, for which landlords are entirely accountable, namely that on most farms tenants are not allowed to sell straw. So many new countries are growiDg increasing quantities of wheat that there is no near prospect of remunerative prices for that cereal, although it is by no means improbable that the extremely low prices likely to prevail throughout the present' season will diminish the ardour of foreign growers. What will happen if American wheat has to be sold hero !.l 30s a quarter ? Probably the result will he a considerable diminution in the wheat growth of the United States next year. The price in Kansas is probably not much, if any, above 15s per quarter now. It would be ridiculous to suppose that at such a price wheat-growing can pay, where two quarters to the acre is a fair crop, and the average is only about a quarter and a half. We do not expect such extremely low prices to be permanent, but, at the same tune, we caoimt hold any hopes of prices that would ha remunerative to English growers under existing rents and conditions of land tenure. A small rise in prices would be sufficient to render growers of wheat in new countries once more eager to flood our markets; and however low prices may be, farmers are slow in changing their plans, and it is not easy for many of them in new countries to find any satisfactory substitute for wheat. Unless the spread of total abstinence should diminish the consumption of beer, we need not dispair of seeing barley sell well aj;ain, and oats and pulse are not worth less than in times when farming undoubtedly paid. Withients lowered to meet the markets, then, and with freedom of cultivation and security for capital, we should still hope for prosperity in arabb farming ; but with it, as a safeguard, there should be combined more cowkeeping, mere breeding of sheep and cuttle, more disposition to look to any accessory branch of agricultural production, if it be only a small one, than we have been accustomed to see. These are times when it is more than ever before essential that brains should bo used on the land, and in landlords' mansions too."