WHEAT GROWING.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 300, 17 December 1923, Page 7

WHEAT GROWING.

"THE GREATEST GAMBLE." SURPLUS ONE MONTH'S SUPPLY. A SERIOUS OUTLOOK. (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) ASHBURTON, this day. In a statement to the Frees, Mr .Lead ley (chairman of the Wheat Board) says that in spite of the estimate of a twomillion bushel surplus there is now only a surplus of half a million bushels, one month's supply, which i 3 required to mix with new wheat. Similarly the present Government estimate, which was taken under difficult circumstances, forecasting a thirty-bushel crop, is excessive. Persona! inspection fjii wide inquiries from growers showed tuat the farmers in the heaviest yielding wheat districts'expect under twenty-five bushels per Farmers in South Canterbury, Oamaxu, Leeston, Elle=mere, Rangiora, Omihi, and elsewhere say tho best land carries the lightest crops, because an excessively wet autumn and winter necessitated spring sowing, and seed "did not go in well." Mr. Leadley continues: "Unfortunately, in our erratic climate, wheat growing is about the biggest gamble a man can enter, but it would be deplorable if wheat growing were abandoned altogether, and we had to send abroad yearly two million sterling for what, in proportion to value, provides tbe most labour of any farm product. From the time the first furrow is turned till the loaf is delivered it is labour, labour, labour. It would be a national calamity if we were ; dependent on outsiders for our daily I bread, but it is what is going to happen i unless the Government and the public ] realise the position and act accordingly.