THE WEATHER AND THE CROPS.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 12731, 18 February 1907, Page 5

THE WEATHER AND THE CROPS.

Th© few hours' rain of th© week ©nd have served to make th© potato growers anxious (writes our Northern corrcsI pondent.) It has freshened the haulms, I but as it cannot have penetrated far into the soil, it is needless to hold any ! fears as to disease being propagated in tho tubers. The season for the potato crop has not been of the most favourable character for prolific growths all '< over. There -will, however, b© many good yields, and where the return per acre is a ton or two less, growers have much satisfaction in the fact that the dreaded blight has to the present all but disappeared. It may appear a large cost to the country to have a dry ; season expregply in the direction of removing the potato blight only, but farmers have to realise that a dry eereon, enforcing as it does ; a fallow to grass lands, aa well as enabling twitch snd to forth to be got rid of, is not the cause of a very serious loss. The Waimate correspondent of the ] Timaru "Herald writes: —Th© mc<rt important event of the week oecurr&l on Thursday evening, when a shower fell, increasing; in fore© till it was a tropical downpour. For about fir© hours it continued more or less heav ; .lv and tbe country will in a few days show- the !>c.nefit. Everywhere paddnclw were burnt up, stock shirt of fe.-d. and tanks empty. This one ; «hower will not chnnge everything, but ' it will do an immen.s« amount of gocd. Harvesting in tha district is nearly completed. The yields have in some eaf'f-s not been so bad. Waimate is , a favoured region in the matter of its land, and the district suffered less than others. Still the poor harvest will bo 1 felt by all classes.