ABANDONED FARMS.

Auckland Star, Volume 55, Issue 152, 28 June 1924, Page 6

ABANDONED FARMS.

TOO GREAT A STRUGGLE. EFFECT OF BUTTER DECLINE. (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent I DUNEDIX, this day. A business man, who knows Southland intimately, states there are at present at least 200 unoccupied farms in that province. They are most, if not altogether, dairy farms. The decline of the Home markets for butter and cheese (which for the present seems to have been arrested, giving place to a healthier tone), hit the late oecupant3 hard. They ' bought their farm 3at values based on previous high market values for dairy preduce, and the decline in London has put them on the rocks. When one speaks of their having "bouaht" their farms, the term is not strictly accurate; they contracted to buy them, payinir a cash deposit which perhaps absorbed all their available capital, and trusted to hisrh pr'ces f >r their produce to pay the interest on the altogether too large amounts remaining on mortgage, as well as their living expenses. As fate willed it the battle has been too often an unequal one, and a good many of the unfortunates have given up in despair. Thus we see the spectacle of highly improved land lying idle or heinrr unite inadequately worked since the banks or mortgagees as the case may be. are unaVe ti keep productivity anywhere near the maximum. Also we sec good farmers who have possibly been all t'.ieir lie on the land, having Hterallv walked off their farms with nothing seeking employment in towns, handicapped by lack of business experience except the very unnleasant one of iost all their capital after unremitting toil and nnxiety in a futile effort to pull through.