Wheat Growing.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 15746, 13 November 1916, Page 6

Wheat Growing.

In last week's "Gazette." there appeared a report by the Government Statistician upon the areas under grain. It is notoriously difficult to arrive at any certainty beforehand either as to the area under crops, or, later, as to tho total yield. By obtaining from 80 to 90 per cent, of replies to enquiries from growers, however, the Statistician has been able to estimate approximately tho extent of the sowing. The re-

sult of his enquiries was very striking. In the 1915-16 season the area under wheat was 33-5,423 acres. For the currcnt Reason it is estimated to be only 218,&17 acres. The acreage has often fallen much below the latter figure, but it has never done so in recent years without a shortage that sent up the price. Last season's sowing was abnormally high, but the average yield was unusually low, so that the total yield, though, sufficient, was not greatly in excess of requirements. If tb6 sowing this season is a§ estimated, and if the average were to be tho same as last year's (21.56 bushels), there will be a very serious shortage indeed, for the total yield would be 4,718,98S bushels. This is nearly half a million bushels less than

the lowest yield in any of the last ten seasons, and is well over a million bushels short of requirements. Until some good reason is furnished for believing otherwise, the Statistician's estimate should bo regarded as correct enough for most purposes. We should not be at all surprised if tho sowing has been undesirably restricted, for tho events of tho past two years have not been such as to encourage farmers fo sow wheat if it suits them to put their land to other uses. Living as they do under the threat of repressive regulation if the market sets towards high prices, with 110 hope of compensation if prices fall unduly, the farmers can hardly think wheat-growing a very fascinating occupation. To our mind it is impos-. sihlo to deny that if the fanner is forbidden to receive more than a certain maximum price he should be protected against tho risk of having to take less than a certain minimum. In the controversies over the price of wheat nobody has ever attempted to show that justice conflicts' with this principle. Our own opinion is that the best solution of the wheat problem is the policy of non-interference. Let the farmer take the chance of the market, and in the long run everyone will be fairly treated. Scarcity and . high prices will, as in the past, lead to greater sowings with a corresponding swing of prices in the other direction. If later enquiries and calculations confirm tho Statistician's estimate, we shall have before us a natural result of the farmer's unwillingness to take all the risks of wheat-growing without the chance of any offsetting

I advantage. If the anti-agrarian extremists were to be given a free hand for four or five years wheat would altogether disappear from the list cf New Zealand's main products.