SPECULATIVE AGRICULTURE.

Waikato Times, Volume XX, Issue 1682, 17 April 1883, Page 2

SPECULATIVE AGRICULTURE.

7 1 The uncertainty of corn-growing has' never been more strikingly exemplified' than during the past harvest. At about Christma? time, when the crops were mostly , well out in ear and changingcolour, Nature seemed to have done her • utmost to repay the.^exertjons of the farmers. Throughput' the .whole land the crops were far above the 'a'verage, and the position of the general body of farmers, which had f been inipr,ovjng for two years past, seemed likely to be brought ,up , to high water mark by a.. season of overflowing abundance. ' In all, the earlier districts their hopes have bden' fully realised. Neither rain nor wind interfered to any serious extent with, the work of harvesting, and the crops were aecuml unshaken and in good orderBut along the base of the hills skirting the plains, and over a large part of SoutU Canterbury.' and also throughout, a largey part of Otago where the crops are later to ' ripening, broken weather sut in at about the middle of harvest, when the work of carting was' scarcely more than well begun, and week following week of damp close weather, the result is a severe average loss over the whole of those later,, districts, and in some individual cases it , is to be feared the consequences will prove " disastrous. Job's comforfcprs are always plentiful enough when misfortunes happen to individuals or communities, nna we do not at all wish to take up that rnle. .Experience and observation have taught us that the utmost energy and foresight isl in some seasons no match for the weather « in this climate. , Like r a.U temperate climates, we have/ no fixed r wet or dry mouths, and r<\in or wind may come at any time, and we have known instances of good farmers suffering from.' unfa vonr-/ able weather in harvest, while their more,' 1 negUgeut > neighbours , have < escaped. There are doubtless numbers, of cases in which during the past harvest heavy loss has been purely the result of want of w ell directed energy or a false economy of labour. That very mky plan, too, of threshing out of the stook is .account*, able for a good deal, and we cannot sympathise much with any farmer who, having had experience of this climate, risks a largi! part of the fruits of tho year's labour for the sake of a mere trifling saving in the work of harvesting. Unfortunately there are among our farmers a considerable number who are slow in learning by experience, and for whom the chance of a trifling direct saving lias an n resistible attraction. Corn growing, taken by itself, and in this climate, is a purely speculative business, containing almost as strong an element of uncertainty as gold-mining, andit is very nearly as delusive. Really good seasons, both as to yield and prices, happen but seldom, and the worst of it is that corn -"rowing, pure and simple, is in so many coses undertaken by men wfio can the least afford to speculate. When the breadth of corn on a farm is made to bear its proper and natural proportion to grazing and other branches of agriculture, one bad harvest seldom means disaster. A man who has capital sufficient for the land he works in in a position to employ a proper amount of labour for the land , he cultivates, and is not compelled by want of means to let his grain stand out in the field for weeks after it should he in the stack. Under the most favourable conditions corn growing is ' uncertain enough, and when it sis undertaken at a disadvantage it is risk* j ing the work of a year on the single cast of a die. Numbers of men in districts where «the land is held in large estates take land for one crop of wheat, for which they generally pay a heavy rent. Thousands upon thousands of acres were cultivated last season under that arrangement. This class of men, usually known as "croppers," have seldom more capital than is represented by a team or two of horses, and their own capacity for labour. They give bdls of sale over their horses, and mortgage the crop before it is put in to buy seed and to provide for other neces-, sary expenses. They, in fact, mortgage the very sweat of their brows, work hard' and live hard, enduring privation which no hired labourer would put up with for a week, and all this for the chance of tho scant margin of profit which the vicissitudes of the season and' the tender mercies of the money lender may leave them. Others, again, buy land on defeited payments with the 1 intention of racking the means of paying the accruing instalments out of the soil by hard cropping, knowing all the while that if they succeed in their object it will be at the cost o^ .'beggaring out the lapd/ "anil that after years of hard work it will be only a barren possession. No farming can be in the long run profitable if more than a fourth of the extent of land cultivated is annually under grain, and on most of, the land in' the country a fifth would be a better proportion. On small farms near the larger centres of pdpulation >it may and probably will become profitable to raise this proportion by the use of manures, but when the land is to be self-supporting .1 long interval must elapse between the grain crops, otherwise the soil will gradually fall off in .productiveness. The longer the periods of rota-» tion, the better will be the crops, and the' larger profit will they yield per aero, as < many of the expenses are the same in a light as in a heavy, crop. By light cropping aitd heavy grazing the land is always kept in condition, or, in other words, in a fertile, and paying state, so that, it never fails to respond to any labour expendpi on it. But if fond once gets out of conrf^^ tion. it is a work, of years to restore \ "" and during the time of its recovery it yields little or no profit to the farmer.

The JPaitam Press records the followin j? : A practical joke was perpetrated on some of our enthusiastic ' hoodlum* the other evening. A resident, newly/retujned f rbni a ' brief honeymoon, iras threatened with " tin-kettliog "uhleafe he " shooted," and on the interesting occasion invited his well-wishers Indoors, ■where they were entertained with buns and beer, the latter commodity being judiciously strengthened with Epsom salts. The happy jmiri drank* cold tea. * The United Service Gazette says thafc'a newbranoh is to be added to the nary to be called the detective branch, comprised of pay-masters- and assistant pay •masters, whose duty it will be periodically ,but without notice, to impound ship?.' bodies and have /thedt examined at the 1 Admiralty;'! The .reason for tliiflfetgp ia^to be found in, the recent discloiures onboardi<the I^trdi Clyi^ and other" Veiwlf,; l ■ >'! ; > 1 .:<"! '• , t,-f /..' r .... , t,u i{