THE SOUTH AUSTRALIAN HARVEST.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VII, Issue 2146, 16 November 1885, Page 2

THE SOUTH AUSTRALIAN HARVEST.

Our Renter's telegrams to-day state that the South Australian wheat crop is estimated to average three or four, bushels to the acre. A crop ot six or seven bushels to the acre has generally left a small margin to the South Australian farmer, though people in New Zealand will probably find it-difficult to understand how the quantity can pay. They are used to average's of over twenty bushels, and the farmer who obtains in two harvests usually turns his attention to something else. In the opinion of New Zealanders the result of the South Australian harvest must, therefore, mean nothing short of absolute ruin to a great number of farmers. A gross return of sixteen shillings per acre-, or less, cannot possibly pay. In New Zealand the prospects are not quite so bright as farmers might wish, but we think that even at last year's prices there is every prospect of a fair margin, We have had news to the effect that the last Indian harvest has failed, and that the American crop shows a falling off .of about two hundred million bushels, The announcement is not, perhaps, a pleasant one in many respects, yet it must necessarily mean increased prices, and the loss of the hard working farmers across the water must prove a gain to New Zealand,