"RAIN-FAKING" IN NEW ZEALAND.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8510, 13 August 1907, Page 5

"RAIN-FAKING" IN NEW ZEALAND.

The Oamaru correspondent of the Wellington Post telegraphs that the committee appointed to collect funds for the purpose o? rair.-naking met in Oamaru, on Saturday. Lifts were handed in, showing that £lB7 had been collected, which, with other amounts raised, but not reported, will make a total of £2OO. With a Government subsidy of another £2OO, an aggregate of over £4OO will be available for experiments. By way of illustration of the importance of the matter to North Otago/Jt may be mentioned that the eighteen months' drought has lost the district not far short of a million sterling. On the last grain harvest, as compared with previous averages, there was a loss of £200,000, and the loss on the decreased output of butter ran to nearly another £50,000. It has carefully been computed that about seventy-five per cent, of cattle and fifty per cent, of sheep that were in the district twelve months ago, have been potted or exported to more favoured districts. When the cost of restocking or the indirect loss if the district is not fully stocked immediately at the end of the drought, are reckoned, it will be seen that the total estimated loss is not extravagant. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that farmers have determined to see if artificial means will produce rain. In addition to the subsidy of £2OO, the Government is giving assistance by supplying explosives from the Defence and Public Works Department at cost, and is also sending expert meteorologists to superintend the experiments. The general feeling here is that at best explosives will only bring showers, but that those showers may sufficiently wet the soil to attract further clouds and to condense them too.