The Wairarapa Daily. FRIDAY, MARCH 14, 1879.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 2, Issue 108, 14 March 1879, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily. FRIDAY, MARCH 14, 1879.

The farmers of the Wairarapa have now an opportunity which they have not hitherto possessed, a career which may bring wealth and fortune to them, a golden chance which, if used rightly, will give them a higher place than they have as yet enjoyed in the agricultural statistics of the Colony, At present one can count in a very short time the number of those settlers in the Wairarapa who deserve the name of farmers, but thin as their ranks may be, should they avail themselves of their chances their numbers will be strengthened by recruits till the Valley possesses a corps of yeomen which will ensure its future | wealth and prosperity; This year, for the first time in our annals, sufficient wheat has been grown, and sufficient flour ground by the Masterton mills to snpply the wants of all the residents in the Upper Valley till the next harvest comes round, Next year in the natural course of things enough will be grown and ground to supply both the Upper and Lower Valleys, and loads of flour wiil not be, as they have been wont, brought week after week over the Piimutaka—-brought from Canterbury and South Australia by sea aud land to feed farmars able to grow it for themselves. Though it wil 1 be a step in advance, and a great step for the Wairarapa farmers to supply with grain all the Wairarapa people, we shall be disappointed if they are satisfied or contented to rest at even this stage. The mission of the Wairarapa fanners is not only to do this, but also to supply the Wellington market with all it requires, to provide every pound of flour that is made into bread by the Wellington bakers. This they might do, this they ought to do, and this we trust they will make up their minds to do. Can they compete with Canterbury and South Australian farmers in the Wellington market ? Their land is as good or better; they can get the same machinery; they have only a land carriage to pay, while their opponents have both a, l#ad

sea carriage saddled 011 to tliem ! In the face of these facte what farmer in tliq Wairarapa can, without a blush, decline , the contest. In the Lower Valley-and in the Upper "Valley there is practically an unlimited area of land fit for cropping, Ten thousand acres of wheat would probably prove ample for the supply of the Wellington market, and this number could be found almost within a stone's throw of the Borough of Masterton, One landowner alone, Major Smith, lias, we have been informed, two or three thousand acres fit for the plough adjacent to the town, and we are still more learu that our enterprising townsman, Mr Vile, has secured seven hundred of them to crop for his flour mill. We have therefore the land and we have the market in the city of Wellington, where we can deliver flour at a less charge for freight than it can be brought in from elsewhere. Ought not our farmers therefore to monopolize the Wellington trade! We only see one difficulty in the way, but it is not an insuperable one. It is, however, one which has to be conquered, and on which depends the future of the farming interests of the Wairarapa, And all we have said is as nothing if we cannot convince farmers on this point, and they have not the sagacity to avail themselves of the means which have overcome a similar obstacle m other parts of the Colony. To break up large areas with the plough requires capital, to reap and thresh out grain with labor saving machines requires capital, and our farmers, as a body, are not troubled with a superfluity of money. How then is the necessary capital to be forthcoming. The answer comes from Canterbury, where many a small farmer lias, without capital, become a large fanner with it by " borrowing." Down South it has been the practice year after year for farmers to obtain advances from the Bank and from merchants 011 their growing crops. Without these advances they could not break up any large extent of land and bring into the market a big harvest. Year after year they have borrowed as they sowed, and paid back as they reaped, and found a profit on the enterprise. Under this system a man could crop 100 acres at a cheaper rate per acre than ho could crop SO without borrowing. Our fanners, to go ahead, must do the same. If they buckle to the task the necessary money will come from the banker and the merchant for them, as it has done for the Canterbury farmers, Let them talk over the Canterbury plan among themselves and see if they cannot one and all come to the front and next season send into the Wellington market a few hundred tons of good Wairarapa flour as an earnest of what they will do in the future.