Wheat growing in the Waikato.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume IX, Issue 1699, 11 August 1887, Page 3

Wheat growing in the Waikato.

{Waikato Times.) Tbe offer oi Mr. 3. C. 3*jrkh Io purchase any quantity of spring-grown Tuscan wheat that Waikato can produce, is not, we trust, being lost 6ight of by Waikato settlers. Each week the cattle show them that reliance on grazing cattle can be less and less depended upon as a profitable investment. Heretofore, spring-grown wheat has been unfavorably looked upon by the Auckland millers, but early in May last several Eamples of white Tnscau wheat were collected by a Cambridge settler, and sent to Mr. Firth ior his inspection, with the result that that gentleman said that if this was a fair sample of Waikatogrown white Tuscan wheat he would be prepared to purchase five hundred thousand bushels of it next season. The offer was again explicitly made and published at Mr. Firth's request in this journal.

The information referred to, the excellent crop of laßt seaßon, and the improved price obtained for it, have not been without their offect. In all parts of tbe district some one or two, more adventurous than the rest, have made preparations for Boning a larger breadth than usual oi this gram. On one estate at Morrinerille ire bear of a thousand acres to be sown, and elsewhere in smaller quantities, but the matter is not being taken up as generally an it ibould be. Farmers complain of the lose incurred in growing this or that kind of produce, and it has become a wellkDOwn fact that, as often as not, the fat cattle when sold do not realise the value of the grasi and turnips consumed over and above their first cost as stores. In some cases even they have not realised the latter. This may be, but if tbe turnips were followed by wheat the latter crop would pay for both. Dispirited by the low price of wheat in tbe previous feacoa, much ot which, too, waa iasaved by unfavourable harvest weather, Waikato farmers sowed but a comparatively small crop of wheat last season, but those who did reaped the benefit in a large average crop and remunerative prices. Thirty bushels per acre, and even more was no exceptional crop on well cultivated land this last season. In one case at Hautapu we could mention the name of a farmer who, from 50 acres of land, after paying rent of about £200 for the whole farm, seed, reaping, and threshing, and deliTerr, reaicaed a earn oi becweea £130 and £140 as a net profit for all labor, other than the above, applied by himself and family to tbe crop. Scores of settlers have realised this season that there is money in the wheat crop, a fact which should become still more widely realised, and Mr. Firth's altered opinion on the suitability of spring-grown white Tuscan wheat for milling purposes, should remove the only real difficulty there has been in tbe gt owing of wheat in Waikato, its unpopularity with the millers in competition with Southern grain. But this is not altogether a change of opinion on tbe pare of Mi*. Firth. <7er6»ia alterations which he has lately had made to tha machinery of his mill will enable him to deal more satisfactorily with the spring Tuscan wheat than before, and though it will be necessary to use some proportion »f winter-grown wheat, he can of course secure that from some other quarter. Recent arrangements will also enable him to deal with some three-quarters of a million of bushels of wheat' yearly in bis Auckland mill, so thaV to supply tbis one mill alone with only a portion of its requirements, to aaf of the demands of purely local Btt(far«,2#«ct«to t&naen hare an assured and practically ualimitexi market before them.

Captain Edwta telegraphed at 12.27 p.m. to-day: — Every indication of a frost tonight or very cold.

The Waverley could not get out of Wellington yesterday on account of the gale. She is expected to sail from Patea for Nelson and "Wellington on Saturday, at 2 p.m.

It will be seen by advertisement that a special meetinc of the members of the Egmont Agricultural and Pastoral Association is to be he\u on Saturday afternoon to consider question of removing site of show ground to racecourse, and to fix date of next show, &c.

We learn that Mr. Wallace, jun., of Whakamara, who met with a nasty accident while bushfelling a week or two ago, is progressing very favorably under Dr. Lightbourne's 'care. It has been definitely ascertained that he was struck by a falling branch, part of which, however, struck him first on the leg, breaking the force of the blow somewhat, but still the base of his skull was badly injured.

A novel znethoh oi conducting electioneering meetings has been hit upon by Mr. T. W. Hislop, a candidate for Oamaru. Before delivering his speech, he invites questions and answers them, and then touches on matters on which he has not been interrogated. As the pent-up feelings of the electors have been given vent to, the result is that the speaker is not subjected to so much interruption as would follow in tbe ordinary course of events.