CROSS 7 WHEAT

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22344, 7 March 1938, Page 4

CROSS 7 WHEAT

to THE EDITOR OP THE PRESS. Sir, —It s#ms to me that the Wheat Board is taking up rather a mean attitude in regard to Cross 7 wheat. A year ago it was priced with Hunteis, and no definite announcement seems to have been made to farmers that any change would be made. The mere fact that farmers were being charged 2d a bushel less for the seed was rather a snpshod notice. The statement that Cross 7 was intended only to take the place of Tuscan is hardly correct either. As one who was rather interested in its early development, I always had the impression that ns originators expected to produce a far better milling wheat than Tuscan, and that they would be satisfied if n yielded as well as Tuscan or slightly better, on similar land. If events have proved it to be a better yielder than Tuscan, and easier to handle, that is no reason for penalising it. The mam point is its quality, and I should like to quote from “The Press” of November 26, 1937, some comments by the Minister (the Hon. D. G. Sullivan) on this same wheat, at a time when a good part of the 1937 crop had been milled, and all of the 1938 crop had been sown. “The area of this new wheat increased from 1300 to 12,000 acres in a single year. The yield over the whole of New Zealand was 5.13 bushels an acre above that of . . . It is probable that this good yield has been largely due to the fact that Cross 7 has been sown on better land, but it will obviously yield as well as Tuscan under average conditions. The real advantage to the farmers growing Cross 7 is the certainty of an average yield, combined with much greater ease in harvesting. • The advantage to the country as a whole, and indirectly to the farmer, is that Cross 7 makes such good flour, and produces so good a loaf, that its cultivation will further improve the already highquality of the common New Zealand wheats, and will work towards the elimination of the necessity for importing foreign wheats for the sake of strengthening the flour of our standard varieties.” Many farmers will continue to grow the better yielding Cross 7, but in view of the above the Wheat Hoard would be unwise to quibble over the price. Clearly, the quality is better than Tuscan, and for that reason more of it should be grown, and it should be paid for accordingly.—Yours, March 5. 1938.