GRAIN CROPS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3219, 17 June 1909, Page 5

GRAIN CROPS.

A POINT

By Telegraph—Press Association. CHRISTCHURCH, June 17. . Ihe case of Kennaway and others v. Young, decided by Mr V. G. Day, S.M., yesterday, in the Magistrate's Court at Temuka, gave rise to the decision of a novel point. The plaintiffs had leased their farm to the defendar.t,who covenanted not to crop more than a certain number of acres with a "grain or dry crop," undertaking to pay an additional rent of £3 per acre for every acre cropped contrary to the course of husbandry prescribed. The plaintiffs claimed the sum of £l4l for 47 acres cropped last season in excess,of the area permitted, Ine evidence showed that the extra ground was taken up with a crop of oats, which the defendant had been advised to cut green to prevent him coming within the clause governing the'extra rent. It was stated that the oats had been cut green with a reaper and binder, and then stooked to ripen. The oats were allowed to remain in the stook for about a month, when they were sufficently dry to be cut into oat sheaf chaff. A small bag of the grain was produced in court, and, though small, they were bright and clean.

The defendant's witnesses stated that, in their opinion, the crop was a green one, though they admitted that some of the grains would have germinated had they been used for seed purposes. His Worship held that, seeing the crop had been cut with a reaper and binder, and that the nourishment taken from the ground allowed it to mature thus far after cutting, the crop was a "grain or dry" crop, and not a "green" crop.