Untitled

Waikato Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 2598, 7 March 1889, Page 2

Tiieke seems every probability of this colony benefitting largely by the misfortunes of its neighbours. The terrible drought experienced in New South Wales during this present summer has had a most disastrous effect upon the cereal production of that country, so much so that the yield falls enormously short of the requirements for home consumption. In the wheat crop the yield has only been equal to a little over live bushels per aero, an amount that looks very pitiful by the side of the average production in this colony. The deficiency in New South Wales, below tho actual need of the colony itself for bmulstutl's, is given by the Government statist as reaching the l;irge amount of G,5(10,000 bushels, and the actual loss in value to the colony in the low yield of cereals to be not far short of a million sterling. It is estimated that the amount available for import from the neighbouring Australian colonies is 4,600,000 bushels, and that, therefore, the New South Wales people will have to look to New Zealand, principally, to supply the balance of nearly 2,000,000 bushels. In view of this condition of things the Australian grain markets are reported to be in a very agitated state, and the prices of wheat in Melbourne and Sydney are quoted at from five shillings and a penny to live shillings and three-

psMico a liu.slkil, with every indication of a rise. Our own farmers can weigh this information carefully and dcuido for the. in selves whether it will lie lo their advantage to seek an outlet in Australia for their grain. With such a demand as appears to lie forthcoming from New South Wales, it should induce the farmers here, as will be the case with the farmers in the Southern provinces, to inula; a combined effort to sell in the dearest market, and therefore lienelit themselves and the district as much as possible, to the discomfiture of speculators and middlemen.