WHEAT IN CANADA

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 52, Issue 81, 15 January 1932, Page 7

WHEAT IN CANADA

POOR RETURN TO GROWERS. AUSTRALIAN'S IMPRESSIONS. (Special to the “ Guardian.”) CHRISTCHURCH, This Day. After spending some months in Canada and the United States, Mr S. S.'McKay, a director of the Sunshine Harvester Company of Australia, arrived in Christchurch yesterday morning and will stay here for the summer. “Things in Australia are bad,” said Mr McKay, “but they are getting better. Everybody is optimistic. Secondary industries are reviving fast, and many unemployed are being absorbed,”, The Sunshine Company was shipping a great deal of machineiy into Queensland, where conditions were better than in any other part of Australia, Mr McKay continued. Queensland was surprising the rest of Australia.

Australia Envied. Mr McKay came particularly into contact with the farming communities of both the United States and Canada. In both countries there was a great deal of unemployment and the position was looked on as being serious. Cana■dians envied Australia’s signs of lecovery and looked with apprehension toward the coming winter. Their idea was that, if they could get through the winter without rioting among the unemployed, they would be ovei tno worst of their trouble. The Canadians considered that Australia was in a good position because, there had been no .riots there during the winter. Canadian wheat farmers had had a trying time last season. Land values were relatively high, and the return from the crop was in some instances only 9|d a. bushel. In. certain areas the cartage of wheat from the farm was charged at the rate of a halfpenny a bushel a mile; x and many farmers found that when their wheat was taken off the farm the whole of the price received went to pay cartage. There was nothing left for even the cost of growing if. The Canadian) System. The Canadian system of wheat interested Mr McKay. In tno milder parts, a ninety-day crop was tiie rule, but in parts of the north, where the area under wheat was expanding rapidly, sixty-day crop was possible. The wheat was of a good quality, and could be sown and disposed of while the other matured. Most wheat farmers did not live on their land. They spent the season in sketchy shacks on their farms, attended to theii ci opping, and then for the rest of the year decamped to one of the big cities wlieie. they sent their children to school. Most of - the farn| work was done by tractor and, while not under wheat, required no looking after at all. Russian Thistle. Growers were seriously concerned by the spread of a weed known as Russian Thistle in the southern wheat lands. This pest had in some places become so bad that the land could no longer be; used, and this as much as anything accounted for the expansion in more northern regions. The thistle, which in Russia, grew to a height of only a few inches, grew in Gan fid a into a laige bush, and no method of dealing with it had yet been found.