ASHBURTON COUNTY.

Press, Volume LV, Issue 10023, 29 April 1898, Page 3

ASHBURTON COUNTY.

Our Ashburton correspondent writes :— The effects of the drought throughout the

whole of Canterbury aud away south to below Palmerston are most disastrous, not only as regards the cereals, but roots and pastures of all descriptions. There are, of course, exceptional instances ot fairly good crops of both corn and roots, but even in the favoured localities yields of grain have not come anywhere near anticipations. To deal more especially with the country south of the Rakaia from the hills to the sea, the season has been the worst ever experienced since the turning over of the first tussock. Tue Asli!-iu-loi* county is one of the chief grain-growing centres of New Zealand, but the returns fur the past so.-tson are phenomenally low. Hundreds, aye, and thousands ot acres of out- best wheat-prodneing lands have yielded average* varying from nothing at all up to three, six and eight bushels an acre. Along the foot oi the hills they have had nice showers at frequent interval-* all through the summer, with the result tliat feed has been plentiful, roots have flourished, and what little grain was sown gave satisfactory yields. Mr D. Cameron, of Springfield, Mr John Holme-, Mr Cranfield, and a few others in the Methven district, had some really excellent-looking crops of grain, but they are not threshing out up to anticipations by at the very least ten bushels per acre. There was a lot of nice-looking crops on Longbeach, Coldstream, Mr C. F. Todhunter's Westertield estate, Mr E. Str-ddart's, Mr S. S. Chapman's, Mr E. Horsey'b, and other farms in the Willowbv district. Mr W. Strauge, Mr Geo. Body, and several others down on the south bank of the Ashburton, were also iv similar happy positions ; but though they are exceptionally fortunate as compared with scores of others, still the threshing mills are not giving .a good return of bushels in scarcely a single instance.

Speaking for the Ashburton county alone, I believe from my own personal observations and from many careful enquiries I have made, that, taking the good with the bad, an average of nine or, at the very outside, ten bushels per acre is well within the actual yield.

With regard to the present condition of feed and stock, I have never s§en the paddocks anything like so bare of feed, and how farmers are going to winter their stock is a very serious and difficult problem to solve. Large numbers of sheep are going iuto the boiling-down or preserving pot, and if we get a wet cold winter large numbers of others will have a very hard struggle for existence. Up to within the past week it was simply impossible to plough grass lands, bub we have had some nice rains since, and the teams are able to work a bit. A lot more r3in is still wanted before it can reach the subsoil, but sufficient has fallen to germinate what grain has already been sown, and it will also keep the turnips moving.