PARCHED PLAINS

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXXII, Issue 12476, 12 February 1935, Page 2

PARCHED PLAINS

HARDLY A GREEN BLADE IN CANTERBURY.

WATER-RAGES DRIED UP

SPRING-SOWN WHEAT FED OFF

BY STOCK

The drought in Canterbury lias already become for many farmers a major calamity. Practically the whole tract of the Canterbury Plains from tlic coast to the foothills and from the Rangitata River to Kaikoura is so dry that there is hardly a green blade to be seen. The season lias been a very disappointing one for farmers. There were remarkably generous winter and spring rains after the dry summer and autumn, and so plentiful was the growth of grass that it was believed nothing could spoil the season for the grass. Indeed nothing but this very early and almost unbroken drought right through the summer could have spoiled it. ■ Canterbury farmers expect hot dry weather in summer, but they also hope for and generally receive occasional rainy days with cold breezes even in midsummer. This year they have had no such relief from a- liot sun and according nor'-west winds, and the generous growth which the grass made up till mid-November lias been burned up. Some grass lias burned so dry that it lias almost powdered into dust. Sometimes there remains enough of the dried herbage to show that the spring growth was vigorous. This dry tangled mass has Caused the gravest uneasiness because it threatens danger from lire.

There have been many serious grass fires and many more have been beaten out before any considerable damage was done. Even this unpalatable dried herbage is readily eaten by slreep and is nutritious, but to eat it the sheep must have water. In most districts water is available from the water-race system, but some of the races have failed this' year. Residents say that no such .failure lias occurred previously for at least thirty, years. Only those sections of the race system which depend on rain-fed streams have wholly or partly failed. The big. snow-fed rivers , have run throughout the summer at their normal level, and races fiid by them supply plenty of water, i L ’