THE WEEK

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23717, 15 August 1942, Page 3

THE WEEK

THE SEASON

The present winter in Canterbury must surely be one of the mildest on record. Except for two or three shortlived, if bad bursts, there has been little of winter's touch in the last two months. Signs of an early spring in the appearance of flowering shrubs and other growth are general, but it is perhaps somewhat premature to rely on the winter being at an end. August and the early part of September can serve up vicious storms on occasions, even if the days are longer and the hours of sunshine greater, and these breaks generally follow on a mild winter. The mildness is suggested by the rainfall figures. In Christchurch, in the winter months of June and July and up to the middle of August, the rainfall has been less than four inches, and a good proportion of that fell in one “lump.” The heavy covering of snow on the ranges indicates that the mild conditions have not extended to the high country, and rather severe losses have been reported in some pockets of North Canterbury. Lambing is now on the way in the northern end of the province and is continuing under ideal conditions. Grass feed is showing well, and with the way the ewes have come through the winter on the low country and downs the percentage should be good, and the new crop should get a good start off. Should the remainder of the winter on the ranges be free of snowstorms there may be some rehabilitation of the sheep flocks of the province, which have declined by more than 1,000,000 head in the last four years. Dairv farmers, particularly those supplying the city market, have been fortunate in the good season that has prevailed, or rather vendors and consumers have been fortunate in that the mild winter has enabled f .• milk supply to be moderately well maintained, except as far as the schools are concerned. The position some weeks ago, when there was a burst of rough weather, did Hot look favourable for this result. The agriculturist would doubtless like to see some real wintry weather before the season becomes too advanced. A snow and a few hard frosts are useful factors in improving cereal growth and arresting soil pests. The grass grub is not unlikely under the present mild conditions to lie dormant when the dry weather sets in later on. Autumn-sown wheat in the meantime is looking exceptionally well, and with the arrival of spring should get a good send away. Although the weather so far in August has suffered some short breaks, conditions have been favourable enough on the drier lands to undertake sowing of wheat, and it is believed that the acreage sown in August and early September will be the largest for some years. Heavy land is still too wet for cultivation, much less sowing. Another two or three weeks of the present weather should enable most of the heavier land to be seeded at the usual time —oy mid-Sep-tember. REGIONAL WHEAT AREAS It is perhaps unfortunate that the Hon. W. J. Poison, when addressing a conference in Christchurch recently on the production of more wheat, potatoes, etc. perpetuated th useless policy of fixing regional quotas, This scheme possibly had its origin in some brilliant office idea. The capacity of farms to grow wheat cannot be measured by county or district boundaries. Some counties are cropping fairly heavily: others with ]ust as suitable land crop very lightly. It is the farmer on the latter to whom the appeal should be directed. _ Growers in some of these smaller regional areas might take up the position that their districts were doing well enough. There is no district competitive element in the more wlieat campaign, and it would be much more effective ir those farmers who have wheat land were “campaigned’* as a whole regardless of artificially-created boundaries “Straggler” recalls a case during the last war in which a landowner had a big block of ideal wheat land which he declined to plough up for wheat because his neighbour was growing enough in his district for the two of them.” The same argument might arise under the present regional system. These estimates of regional requirements doubtless have been based on last year’s acreage or on the average of a number of years—it does not much matter. The availability of suitable wheat land could be much better estimated by taking the figures of seasons when 300,000 acres or more were grown. If this were done it would be found, for instance, that Otago Southland 30 years ago grew 80.000 acres of wheat instead of the 43,500 required in this regional system: that Oamaru (which presumably embraces Waitaki County) 20 years ago grew 38.600 acres instead of 18,000 acres asked for under the regional plan; and that Timaru (presumably South Canterbury) in 1922 grew 95,925 acres instead of the regional requirement of 57 000 acres. South Canterbury has promised 1000 acres more than the request of 57,000 acres, but this district has gone in so extensively for small seeds production and to an extent for linen flax, which crops have occupied original wheat land, that there is some excuse or explanation for the poor wheat acreage there The campaign should be directed mainly at those parts of the country which have demonstrated that they can grow large acreages of wheat if the need arises, and not set a difficult if not impossible objective m those areas which have already done well. Ihe country has been growing wheat and keeping records for more than 70 years and the department concerned should be able by this time to tell the Minister where these areas arc situated. The same argument applies to potatoes. The appeal should be directed to all growers, or potential growers, irrespective of which side of the county or provincial fence they may happen to be located.