Commercial.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3009, 16 February 1881, Page 2

Commercial.

Messrs P. Cunningham and Co., of Christchurch, under date February Ist, report upon the produce markets as follows : —The harvest of 1881 opens under exceptional circumstances. The plentiful rains at an early season produced a stout healthy appearance in the crops, and gave the grain sufficient strength to stand the long continued dry weather which followed, the result being that the crops on all sides have ■well-filled heads, but rather short in the straw. A great amount of grain is already in stook, many farmers have commenced threshing, and some few are now delivering, we anticipate the threshing will be pushed on vigorously, the state of the wheat warrants farmers adopting this course, although last season it proved fatal in many cases on account of the dampness of the grain. We can at present only guess at the acreage under crop, hut at a very early date we will be in possession of the Government statistics, and Jwe will at once furnish you with the same. The wheat samples so far to hand are very superior in quality ; it is rather early to judge as to the general quality, but we fully expect that the grain will show a marked advance in this respect compared with last year; the opening price for new wheat will probably be 3s 9d per bushel f .o.b. There will be little or no alteration in the price of the new oats compared with the old ; latest advices from England state that the market is considerably overstocked with inferior qualities, and the prices consequently were receding. Brewers command the barley market, and are buying the good samples readily ; prices range from 2s to 3s 6d., according to quality.