RURAL MATTERS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9671, 20 December 1909, Page 6

RURAL MATTERS.

WHAT WILL THE HARVEST BE? j THE LOT OF THE AGRICULTURIST. BANEFUL BLIGHTS, WANTON WEEDS, FATEFUL FLIES. Harvest prospects in the Masterton and surrounding districts will form the bases of discussions rural and urban for the next month or so. Now that shearing is rapidly advancing towards completion, and the subject of record clips has waned somewhat in interest, the question "what will the harvest be?" must naturally be an oft-recurring one while the reaper and binder is busy in the preliminary stages of the strenuous work entailed in filling the garner. On Saturday many agriculturists were found to have made a start with harvesting their oat crops, in the Te Ore Ore district Messrs Percy Bros, commencing operations on a promising looking'crop of «ome two hundred acres, while neighbouring crop-rais-ers are also on the .point of cutting equally satisfactory .looicing areas.) To the person who is not a farmer, and particularly to the person who is not an agricultural farmer, appearances often deceive very considerably. Many crops tin this district seem to the casual observer to be all that could be desired, but judging from some important information imparted to a Wairarapa Age reporter on Saturday matters connected with the oat crop are not nearly so satisfactory as the# >might:be. A well-known farmer residing on the Upper Plain,- who is recognised as a particularly capable agricultural authority, states that he has closely inspected some important areas down in oats in vari©Uß parts of the district, and he 'has found not one but dozens of crops to be .more or less affected with apftis~<-a woolly blight, and the result is that .these areas are exceedingly patchy. Where the disease has attacked the oats the yield has been wery materially reduced, and as a consequence the harvest will come as a disappointment to not a few farmers. In the Te Whiti district, where great care ds invariably taken by a progressive knot of the district's leading agriculturists to insure clean, heavy crops., this blight has made its appearance also, ; while'the lesser imporant localities have also been visited. There are also reported to be some otherwise excellent oat crops almost completely spoiled for harvesting by the prevalence of tares. "I would not like to have to drive the best binder on earth through some of ithem," was the opinion of a harvest expert of twenty years' experience. ""The spreading of tares in this dis-

trict is becoming a rather serious matter for agriculturists," he said, "and some concerted action will have to be taken sooner or iater to prevent the weed becoming an intolerable nuisance. Many good cropping areas are fast spoiling, and will assuredly have to be put down into grass for a time to check the weed. "To what do you attribute the spread of the nuisance?" "To the feeding of stock on oaten sheaf in which the seeds of the weed abound. The seeds are not masticated at all, and the digestive organs of the animals in no way impairs their fertility. As a consequence the weed is continually getting a tresh start on ground where perhaps'it has been eradicated, while on country where ho great amount of trouble is taken to keep it in check there will soon be no coping with the evil." There is an increased number of wheat areas in the district, and they are mostly looking well. But even in the wheat crops there is found to be the usual bane of the anxious farmer —yet another pest. It seems that some crops which when a foot so so above ground promised to be quite exceptional in point of yield, a fly has made its appearance, somewhat similar in its devastative work to the turnip fly. An instance was quoted where a Fernridge farmer had a magnificent crop in its early growth reduced very speedily to what is likely to prove a total failure. It will be difficult to know, definitely for a week or two how far the furegoing pests, combined with the inevitable rust and smut are going to reduce the profits of the farmer who sows, Whether the south valley has been similarly afflicted, and

to the same extent as the Masterfco areas ia not yet ascertainable, though it ia improbable that such scourges wiU be purely local. There is reason to believe that, in spite uf affected crops, the increased acreage ur.der white crop will more than balance any decrease on last year's harvest caused by prevalence of blight or fly. If good weather conditiena are maintained for the harvesting season the local agriculturist will probably be quite satisfied.