WHEAT-GROWING DECLINE.

Evening Star, Issue 19044, 12 September 1925, Page 6

WHEAT-GROWING DECLINE.

Bv now it seems fairly assured that the dominion is in for what tho farmers and gardeners call a dropping spring. This follows on late winter rains that have left the ground saturated, and now tho complaint from rural districts is that tho wetness of the ground is preventing farmers from getting on to it to work it. Consequently the prospect now being held out is that once rnoro the area planted in wheat will bo restricted and that tho next harvest will bo short of tho dominion’s requirements. This is occurring so often, and not invariably because of weather conditions alone, that it is developing into a habit. Though every inducement is offered by the Government to farmers to grow wheat—such as the guaranteeing of prices which usually work out at abovo world parity and therefore constitute a bread tax payable by tho whole of tho dominion—tho response has been bo poor that it is now a matter of course to draw on Australia for importations. As Australia produces better wheat at lest cost than Now Zealand there is no economic waste in such a process if one views the matter from a non-insular viewpoint. It is, in fact, from that aspect a good example of the inter-Empire trade in praise of which politicians orate on occasion. But what is to bo said about the importation of oats? This is a crop which the South Island of New Zealand can produce in competition with any country on earth. Yet the North Island is being flooded with Canadian oats and oatmeal, and the South Island millers are ' finding themselves completely ousted from their wonted natural market, and, to add to their difficulty in meeting this outside invasion, they find themselves unable to buy milling oats, because the farmers are holding on to their stocks with a tightness and confidence that proves at least their freedom from any financial embarrassment that would put pressure on them to realise. Nor has the recent heavy increase in freights on cereals under the new railway tariff been a cause for joy to purchasers of grain. It would be interesting to know how much effect this has had, quite apart from the wot weather, in discouraging cropping for next harvest. The relative value of these two anti-cropping factors ought to be gauged from the area put in wheat and oats in Southland this season. That district has had, in contrast with the. rest of New Zealand, a phenomenally dry winter, enabling a great'

deal of swampy ground in bo tackled for thfi first time in its history.. Many wide-awake fanners seized the heavensent opportunity to drain it, and a, fair area of virgin ground has thus been added to the arable acreage of Southland. Hut a great deaf more than this accretion will be needed to offset the land that is being diverted, in Canterbury more particularly, to other purposes than cropping. The position of the wheat-growing industry evidently warrants thorough inquiry and more deep-seated remedies than the tinkering ones so far applied, by our rulers.