The Waikato Times AND THAMES VALLEY GAZETTE. THURSDAY, AUGUST 25, 1887.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 2360, 25 August 1887, Page 2

The Waikato Times AND THAMES VALLEY GAZETTE.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 25, 1887.

Equal and exact justice to all men, Ol whatsoever »tate or persuasion, religious or political.

What must have struck all who mad it, as the most valuable portion of the report of the chairman of directors of the Colonial Bank at their yearly meeting last month, is the reference made, by so clearheaded a man as Mr G. McLean to the immediate future of the colony. He refers to the fact that the great staple of the colony, wool, has held its own, and can be raised with profit at the price, if maintained, and argues that if the price of wool keeps up, the frozen meat industry can got along fairly well. Since the meeting of the 27th ult. was held, our readers are aware that special action, to promote the sale of New Zealand frozen meat direct to the retail dealers throughout the United Kingdom, has been taken by a powerful syndicate at Home, so as to break down the ring which ha,;; t,brown the whole profits of Australian and New Zealand mutton into the hands of the middlemen, a.r,d this, together with the reduced ruling and yet probably to ,v. i further reduced, will enable rr.f bir.iTi f/i realn'.o at least 2d y> , ret to 'ir meat, v/hieh will • -a t\ / pv/abic price. Then, r.fh ti, g )()!/ real,:! of •v ‘ M'.//San apeal. : s

hopefully. “In the more northern parts of tins island,’' he says, “ whore wheat lias been raised, farmers have been aide to secure good crops and fair prices ; so that matters have mended so far as the farming interests there are concerned. But (and here we would draw the special attention of our Waikato settlers to what follows) I am sorry to say that south of Dunedin, where oats are grown, there has been groat disappointment as to the crop,and very low prices have tended to hurt the farmers.” Of course, as he goes on to say, the oat harvest another year may bo better in tho extreme south, whore wheat on account of tho climate cannot be profitably cultivated, and prices may rule higher, for it does not follow as a necessity that ono bad year should bo succeeded by another bad year. Our settlers will do well, however, with tho assured market they have at their own door for grain, to see that it

is to their interest to make wheat the staple grain produce of the Waikato. Years ago we pointed out this very fact, that wheat like gold has a standard value in tho world’s market, while tho price of oats is purely local, and has sometimes dropped so low as to prove unremunerative, the grain Itself having been unsaleable in any largo quantity. With land and climate suitable for wheat, our lands to be planted with grain should be sown down with wheat till the season for sowing has passed, and then oats may follow, when wheat is no longer possible on account of tho advancement of the season.

It is highly satisfactory to learn then, as indeed any one travelling through the country may see for himself, that so much wheat this season is Being put in by our farmers. They cannot put in too much, so long as it is well put in. Nor need they charge us with inconsistency in this statement, after recommending a strict adherence to a fixed rotation. The case of tho present time is exceptional. The settlers of Waikato must make a supreme effort at the present pinch to place themselves on solid ground, and they cannot better do this than by sowing every available acre that they have the means to properly cultivate with wheat. We have not heard of any movement on the part of loading settlers to approach the monetary institutions with a view to making arrangements to enable settlers who have not immediate available means to undertake the sowing of this crop, as suggested by us in a previous article. There is yet time to add a considerable breadth to that already sown, and the opportunity for doing so should in no case be neglected.

Wc have been led into these remarks by the fact brought to our notice that some farmers are already afraid that wheat sowing in Waikato may he overdone and the next years market glutted. Such men can never have fully weighed the offer made by Mr Firth, and not alone by Mr Firth, but other millers. Mr Firth requires three-quarters of a million of bushels to keep his mill running, Mr Lamb probably as many more, and this is after our own local mills in Waikato have been supplied. Do our readers know what is the wheat production of the Province of Auckland and of the whole colony. East year, in the whole of tho Auckland Provincial district no more than 4,973 acres, from the North Cape to Whakatano and West Taupo wore sown with wheat, yielding 132,990 bushels, or not a third sufficient to supply a single Auckland mill. To this area sown the four counties of Waipa, Waikato, Plako and Raglan contributed together 2517 acres, yielding 68,761 bushels, or an average of upwards of 27 bushels per acre. Who shall say that wheat cannot be profitably cultivated in Waikato, or that the local provincial market is likely to be overdone! If we take the statistics for the whole colony we shall find that 253,025 adres were sown iu wheat, yielding 6,297,638 bushels, or sufficient only to meet tho home consumption of about nine such mills as Mr Firths. One word and we have done. Experiments show that there is a vast difference in the yield according to the sort of wheat sown. It was white Tuscan that Mr Firth commended as of sufficient excellence to secure a market, and our settlers will do well this year to sow white Tuscan. But on two occasions experiments in the Homo country and at the Lincoln School of Agriculture in the Canterbury province of the Middle Island, the yield varied considerably from various varieties sown. Atßothamstead, in England, whore the conditions were equal in all cases, the yield varied from 28 to 541 bushels per acre. What the kinds tried were, wo do not know, but in Canterbury the kinds were given, and the results, leaving out decimals, as follows :—White Tuscan, IS bushels; Nursery, 30 bushels ; Champion, 32 bushels ; Essex rough chaff, 37 bushels; Hunter's white, 38 and 38 bushels ; and Browick rod, 21 bushels. The report hero is defective, as not showing whether all sorts had been tried under similar description of soil and treatment, but the information is valuable, and may be yet taken advantage of for experimental purposes by our settlers to ascertain whether a larger yielding variety of equal milling value may not be grown in future seasons.