CONDITIONS IN THE WAIKATO.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XXXII, Issue 8257, 23 December 1911, Page 7

CONDITIONS IN THE WAIKATO.

An Ex-Ashburtonlan's Views. •Mr Walter Huston, formerly oi Flemington and Tinwald, and now of Eureka, near .Hamilton, Waikato, !s. a: present, on a .visit: to', Ashburton. M Huston, who is engaged m farming m the Waikato, gave a representative of this paper some interesting^ items r« garding the condition of the couatry" h: the north. In common with Can I terbury, Mr Huston says the season ie fully three weeks late throughout the whole of the North Island, and the weather during the past two months had been decidedly unseasonable, , conseqehtly the dairying industry had suffered a slight set back. Grass, which was now very plentiful, was very, succulent, and having been almost continuously wet for several weeks, its milk producing properties had been detenor ated m many instances. Mr Huston went on to explain that an unusualry large area had been sown this'season m rape, thousand-headed kale, silver beet and turnips, and with the excep tion of the latter root, the greater Imlk j of which had only been recently sown j the "strikes" had been particularly j good and the growth healthy and vigorous. A large tract of country had also been sown m oats, and Mr Huston | said this crop gave promise of yield- j ing abundantly, although it would not be ready for the reaper till the first week m the new year. Last year (he added) the whole of the oat crop was safely stacked at a corresponding period. In reply to a question ;»s t.> the labour market, Mr Huston said that -the services of reliable men for the dairy farms were difficult to secure, and this m face of the fact that weekly wages ranging from 26s to 30s per week and found were being offered. Certainly there were unemployed men to be found m some of the .larger towns, but. the majority of these were of that class that were—to adopt, our informant's graphic description— "looking for work and praying :i.rt they would not find it." Mr Huston said that he was agreeably impress >i and the appearance of Canterbury, and notwithstanding the setbacks that every part of the country was subjected to as a result of the periodic and erratic variation of climatic conditions, his experience went to prove that taken year to ypar, Canterbury, as a province, would take a lot of beating as the foremost agricultural and pastorai country m the Dominion. "Finally," he concluded, "our land values m Ihe Waikato are equal to those obtaining m Canterbury, and while wo can undoubtedly beat Canterbury for aground dairying purposes, it is only itdv to- say that for cereal production and for those qualities that make for re n.unerative stock raising, the soil of Canterbury and your climatic conditions completely overshadow those obtaining m the north."