THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, JANUARY 10, 1910. AGRICULTURAL PROSPECTS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9686, 10 January 1910, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, JANUARY 10, 1910. AGRICULTURAL PROSPECTS.

The statistics just lo hand showing the probable cereal yields for the coming harvest, as estimated by the officers of the Agricultural Department, fully bear out the anticipations of general rural prosperity that the favouring nature of this year's seasons warranted, We have for so many years been blessed with abundant harvests that our well-to-do farmers take the smiles of Ceres as a matter of course, and would consider themselves on the verge of Dankruptcy if they had perforce to be content with a yield per acre that Australian farmers consider highly remunerative. I For instance, the highest yield of | wheat per acre in the Commonwealth since the present century began was 13.32 bushels, and the lowest (in 1902-03 —the drought harvest) 2.40 bushels. During the same period in the Dominion the average has been over 31 bushels, the lowest yield beI ing that of our harvest two years | ago, when the wheat crop was returned at 27.18 bushels. The estimated yield for the harvest now in sight is 35 bushels, and, as the area for threshing is 311,000 acres, a very handsome total of over 11,000,000 bushels is looked for. This is the largest quantity grown in any one year on New Zealand soil for the last ten years, excepting in 1899, when the produce of our wheat fields slightly exceeded 13,000,000 bushels. In that record year there were 399,034 acres reaped, and the ; average yield was 32. 7 6 bushels per acre. This year's harvest is nearly one-third more than that realised in j the preceding season, consequently | the surplus for export will swell I appreciably the volume of our over- ; seas remittances to meet the cost of imports and our financial liabilities. The oat crop, that usually bulks large amongst our cereal productions, shuws a.slight decrease according to the estimated returns. Last harvest 18,988,788 bushels were garnsred, but this season the anticipated quantity is put down at 17,770,500 bushel?. Our chief competi'or In

the market for this gxain is Victoria, where 8,000,000 or 9,000,000 bushels are grown yearly (weather permitting) 1 , the averge yield being about 23 bushels per acre. This is just about half the yield per acre that New Zealand farmers are in the habit of expecting. Last season's yield was 46 bushels, and this year's crop is expected to be 47 bushels per acre. Barley forms an important crop to our farmers, as thsre is a large demand for malting kinds, and it is valuable for ensilage and for feeding down with stock. The area under crop this year has decreased from 48,853 acres in 1908-09 to 41,500 for threshing this year. The anticipated yield also shows a de- J crease from rather more than 39 bus- > hels last harvest to 38 bushels per acre this year. Here again comparisons with Commonwealth crops show the enormous natural and climatic j advantages with which our agriculturists are favoured. The Australian average yield for this crop ranges from 15 to (say) 22 bushels per acre, and in the last drought period (190203) New South Wales farmers were made sorrowful by a meagre yield of 4 bushels of barley per acre (Indeed, it may be said that the phenomenal yields of corn in the most favoured countries in the worid are the common-place yields in New Zealand. Cultivators elsewhere expect vicissitudes in connection with their vocation; here the fear of crop failures and starving stock is reduced to a minimum. Of our farmers we can sing with Grey:

Along the coo) sequester'd vale of life, They keep the noiseless tenor of their way,

without any haunting fear of scorching winds, dessiccated pastures, ravaging bush fires, dried up watercourses, or of periods when ior weens together not even a cloud :is big as a man's hand aopears in tha vault of heaven to presage a wished-for change. Added to this, a splendid steamship service places Britain, European, and the markets of the Par East, to a lesser degree, within comparatively cheap and readjr access.