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Lyttelton Times, Volume LI, Issue 5586, 20 January 1879, Page 5

Crops in North Otago.— I The Worth Olago Times says : —All over the district the crops are looking much better than eren the most hopeful would hare expected a month or two ago, and the average may be fairly set down as very little below that of last or of former years. The effects of the drought are seen in some places by the unusual shortness of the straw, and in others by the thinness of the crop. South of Oamaru the latter effect is chiefly observed, the nature of the country happily preventing the hot winds from doing anything like the mischief they perpetrated nearer here. The extreme dryness, however, operated in the direction indicted, and injured what, in an ordinarily good season, would hare been a splendid crop. Notwithstanding this, however, the wheat and oats on the other side of the Horse Range, no less than those on this side, will turn out well. The rain of Tuesday, which promises to continue for some days, while it cannot bo of any great service to the wheat, will do wonders to the large area of oats still green. Harvesting operations, which were becoming general, will naturally be retarded for a short time, but any loss in that direction will bo fully compensated.