GRAIN PROSPECTS AND PRICES.

Auckland Star, Volume XXX, Issue 28, 3 February 1899, Page 8

GRAIN PROSPECTS AND PRICES.

Although in some parts of the colony tie weather has been disappointino" for harvesting- purposes there has, comparatively speaking-, been little serious damage to crops from bad weather in the South Island so far, at any rate, as wheat is concerned. The yields promise to be the heaviest known for several years past and provided there is fine weather from this out for harvesting- work the quality, as well as quantity, will be extremely satisfactory. According to the calculation of the Agricultural Department there are SO,OOO more acres in wheat this year than in the season for 1597-9S, while the growing season all over New Zealand has been wonderfully good. The result should be a bumper harvest, notwithstanding the losses caused by wet weather during harvesting in the earlier districts of the North Island. Alter deducting the quantity required for home consumption and for seed the official estimate is that there will be a surplus of wheat for export from New Zealand of over five millions of hushrels in excess of last year's returns. Large surpluses are also anticipated from other crops. On the other hand, the prices, as we have intimated in our grain market report, are likely to be very low, both for wheat and oats. New wheat is offering at the present writing at 2/8, f.0.b., Lyttelton, and it is generally believed that the general price at the opening- of the season will be no more than 2/0 per bushel. It is understood that many farmers who have done well during the past few years, and therefore can afford to wait, intend to store their wheat, but in any case, takinginto consideration the supplies of old wheat in stock, and the uuusually good harvest returns of the Australian colonies, not to speak of the bountiful yields in almost all wheat-growing-countries of the Northern Hemisphere, except Russia, we cannot but anticipate a low level of prices for several months to come. The only consoling feature in this prospect Is the fact that the large returns per acre will give the farmer something to compensate him for the lower values. The stocks of old wheat in the colony are said to be large, and the various milling companies have incurred disastrous losses, it is said, through purchases last year at 4/ and upwards, and will therefore, we presume, be disinclined to take any speculative risks in their buying operations this season. However, while sympathising with our farming friends in the prospect of low markets for grain, we may point out that a rich harvest is always a great lift to the country generally, and in many indirect ways, even if grain prices are low, the farmer is benefitted by the stimulus given to business generally, especially in a country where stock-farming is almost always combined with the cultivation of cereals. The farmers most to be pitied are those who, besides having to sell their oats and wheat at low rates, have had their good crops more or less spoilt by unseasonable weather. But we are pleased to learn that the injury from this cause is confined to certain limited areas in the South Island, and that ou the whole the Southern g-rain crops have been up to the present very little damaged by bad weather.— •N.Z. Farmer.'