THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, APRIL 30, 1906.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXVIX, Issue 8128, 30 April 1906, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, APRIL 30, 1906.

Id the current number of Dalgety'a Review there is an interesting article on the effect of dear wool. The writer flays:-—"lt is but natural to suppose that wool rising like it has, its effect upon the manufactured article was bound to follow as a natural eequenoe, and higher prices were inevitable. A manufacturer lecently stated that blae worsted dress serges which he üßed to make

jat 7d per yard were now 13d, aud even worsted coatings had been ad- | vanced from 4d to 8d and 9d per yard, according to the quality and weight. It is considered that the least advance has been made in the ! cheap woollen tweeds which are now so popular, and here a penny per yard will cover the inorease. The advance would have been very much more were it not fjr a larger use of cotton, mungo and shoddy, even these being considerably higfier. Now the question arises: Has the advance in wool gone far enough? and without the ieaat compromise or hesitancy, manufacturers Holidly answer in the affirmative. They strongly maintain that wool at today's rates i<3 leaving behind a splendid profit to the growers, and that the higher price is pushed the worse becomes their trade. There is no doubt a good deal of common sense in their contention, for it is well-known that when wool gets beyond its real intrinsic worth, as prices go higher consumption decreases. At least that has been the order of things in the past, but the opinion may bo expressed that manufacturers to-day are more or less reckoning without their host, and that there are strong evidences that the prA&enfc is a most unique time in the history of the trade. It is just possible that the present can be a 'sport,' a 'freak,' if one likes to call it—and that the booming trade conditions in every textile manufacturing country are going to continue so long as to put out of sight every ounce of available stuft. One rejoices very much in the.fact that notwithstanding very high values for the raw material, there are still no signs anywhere of any falling off, and judging by the immediate outlook, the present season, when it terminates, will find the colonial dip conspiouous by its absence. Some there are who believe' that the present market price of wool is simply resting on a fictitious basis, and that manufacturing conditions do not warrant anything like the situation which we are confronted with. That view of things no unprejudiced mind can for no man is guing to buy wool at to-day's rates for the 'fun of it,' higher motives inspiring everyone who to-day is operating in the market—their actions being determined by existing needs."

To many the work of improving wheat must saem dull and proasic, but to those into whose daily lives the growing of wheat enters, it is of intense interest and importance. The death of Mr W. Farrer, the New South Wales Government wheat experimentalist, is nothing short of a national calamity. Mr Farrer devoted bis life to the work of improving the breeds of wheat, with special attention to the producing of rust-proof and smutresisting kinds, and his reputation was world-wide. In the United States?, .where work of this kind is ixuoh more valued than in our colonies, his work was better known than in his own State, and the Indian Government sent an officer from India to study bis methods, which they subsequently adopted. The rust-rosistant varieties which he bred are now in wide use wjtb aplendid results. For not only are the crops larger, but farmers this year could reokon on getting 2d or 3d a bushel more for the best variety than for any other kind. It is obvious that a man who can add bushels 'o the acre and pence to the bushel is doing a monumental work. The task wps an extremely trying one. In dealing bunt he first seleoted the most vigorous plants he could get, and planted the seed from these thickly infected with bunt spores, so that the grain and the disease might fight out the battle for supremacy at once. When the plants matured, the seeds were examined, and only absolutely clean beads were kept, and so on. The result was a plot of wheat of which 98 per oent. was bunt-proof, that is to say, 98 out of every 100 plants, though grown from seed which bad been made blaok with the spores of, the disease before sowing, had become immune from attack. And all this time Mr Farrer bad 10 consider, in making bis selections, all the qualities necessary for good milling grain. Five years ago Mr Isaaos declared in the Federal Parliament that Mr Farrer was foremost in a field whioh "promised to offer the most astounding results of the century to all mankind." Taking up the work originally out of pure love of it, be raised the wheats of Australia to a far higher standard of quality and utility, advanced tbe problem of cultivating the arid plots of the west almost to solution, and doped some day to produce flour whioh would make a 2lb loaf equal in nourishment to tbe present 41b lodf. Well may bis loss be described a* irreparable. Yet tbe Government begrudged bim his £4OO a year, "the salary of a Government clerk who addresses envelopes," as the Sydney Morning Herald remarks, with justifiable exaggeration, and starved bis experimental work.