THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, MARCH 19, 1910. THE FALL OF THE YEAR.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9998, 19 March 1910, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, MARCH 19, 1910. THE FALL OF THE YEAR.

Although the seasons in New Zealand are not remarkable for any great changes in temperature, seasonable indications of the period of the year are not lacking as the months go by. It is sometimes said that there are onjy two seasons in this countrysummer and winter—but an observer of our climate can very plainly detect four distinct seasons. The change, however, always seems to come rapidly, but the rapidity of the change exists more in imagination than in fact. For instance, W3 look forward somewhat keenly to the change from cold winter to smiling spring—it seems long in the coming, but once it has arrived we are inclined to think that the change came about rather quickly. But this is only natural—human nature is very prone to forget the past and to undervalue the present. We have just left behind a summer in regard to which no one can honestly complain. It has been a season that must be a pleasant recollection fnr a while at least in the minds of many. In this

district a favourable stock season, with good prices ruling for the farmers' produce, is of course, an undoubted boon to all classes of the community. If crops have not done quite so well as usual farmers have been amply compensated in other ways. There has been enough rain, and the season has been mild, and there is on every side a good growth of grass for the winter. Last year at a time corresponding with the present the effects of the slump were still bein.? keenly felt. A somewhat drear, hard winter lay ahead for a good many people—more, probably, than who would care to own to the fact. Contrasting the state of things then and now we can appreciate the year of progress that has been experien • ced. During the last few days there has been a noticeable change in the weather. The days of summer have passed, and autumn, regarded by many people as the most pleasant season of the year, is once - more with us. The prospects for the approaching winter are bright. The agricultural industries, on which the prosperity of the whole Dominion depends, are all in flourishing condition, and sheepfarmers and dairymen alike are now reaping in concrete form the net results of their hard labour. As we have said the present is satisfactory; the future is full of promise, and we who live in New Zealand are not vexed with the more serious and complicated problems that affect those living in greater countries, who are more within the zone of the world's work. The time of stress, such as it was, has passed, and, probably, there is now a more general feeling than has existed for some years past that New Zealand is what the late Mr Seddon was so found of declaring in the word a of Bracken, "God's Own Country."