THE HARVEST.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXVII, Issue 8125, 23 March 1887, Page 3 (Supplement)

THE HARVEST.

During the last two months we have published special weekly reports on the progress of the harvest, and the prospects, of the yield, in the various agricultural districts of Canterbury. Harvesting operations are now practically finished, and to complete the valuable series of reports, we have now collected, through the medium of our own correspondents, carefully ascertained returns of the yields of the different descriptions of grain throughout Canterbury. It has been a matter of serious complaint, year after year, that the Government agricultural statistics are issued too late to be of any practical value, either to farmers or to the grain trade, and the particulars which we now furnish will supply a much-felt want of both parties. "We thank grain-growers for their kindness in supplying the required information so readily to our representatives. Holders of very small farms have not been questioned, but we submit the results of our enquiries with the confidence that they will prove sufficiently accurate for all practical ends. ' ASHLEY COUNTY. Beginning with the Amberley district, we find that the yields of both wheat and oats are the lightest in the Province, namely, 18 and 25 bushels respectively to the acre. The wheat is of superior quality, but some samples of oats are rather light. In the other parts of the Ashley County the averages are the highest in the Province, reaching 31 bushels of wheat and 37 bushels of oats per acre. Both cereals are of excellent quality, and have been secured in the best of condition.

SELWTN COUNTY. In the upland section of tbe County, comprising the districts from Kirwee and Springfield southward to the Bahaia, the crops are not so heavy as usual, and there is very little increase in the area in grain. Some instances of very good yields are to be found in the southern pact of the section, which help up the average materially, and we put down the yield at 20 bushels of wheat and 25 bushels of oats per acre. Here as elsewhere, where light soil predominates, the early sown oats are turning out very light, but later crops are fairly heavy. On the Plains, or midland division, of the County, tbe harvest has been quite up to expectations, and 18 bushels wheat and 24 bushels oats ace the estimated returns. The coastward section, extending from Christchurch to the month of the Bahaia, includes such a variety of land that it is difficult to form an accurate estimate of the yield. At Little Britain 1

4ebuAeMotwha*t haw been threshed out, while ob one farm near Killinchy the result only gives 4J bushels, and at the Selwyn Mr H. Werton threshed a large acreage with a product of 45 bushels. A email paddock of oats gave 82i bushels, bat the lighter lands have brought down the average. We calculated the yield per acre in this district to be 28 bushels wheat and 85 bushels oats. The small quantity of barley grown will average 30 bushels per * Cre ‘ AKABOA COUNTY. The quantity of grain grown on the Peninsula is so small that it needionly be said that almost the same area as in the hist two or three years was sown, and the yield is about equal to last year. ASHBURTON COUNTY. _ tn the Methven district the yields, idSlav? .f'V™ “as 1 Kent. Gould end due MW . have been very satisfactory; and along the hills to Alford Forest and Mount Somers the harvest has also been good. Some capital crops, of wheatas well as oats, have been harvested ia the back country. Where the weather during the spring Was Hk&re to the growth of the young corn than it was on the plains. About the Eakaia a good many of the oats ■were so light as to be scarcely worth reaping ; but on the better land of the Chert■ey, Ashburton, and Bangitata districts the yields were better, and it need hardly be said that Mr John Grigg’s crops at Longbeaoh help the average considerably. The crops on the plains are threshing out better than their appearance in the straw would lead one to anticipate, and we are g l«il to be able to quote the yield for the County at 18 bushels wheat and 27 bushels oats. Nearly the whole of the harvest was secured before the nor'-westera came, and the full yield was thus obtained by the grower —except what the small birds devoured. GERALDINE COUNTY. We now come to the principal wheatgrowing district of the Colony, and have the pleasure of recording that never before has the wheat here been of a finer quality. In the South Bangitata district a very much larger area than usual has been cropped, but the yield will hardly come up to the average of last year. Wheat is estimated to thresh out 28 bushels, and oats 35 bushels per acre. The country between Temuka and the Bangitata, comprising the districts of Kakahu, Waitohi, Milford, Orari, Winchester, and Geraldine, was last autumn intended to be extensively sown with wheat, but the -bad weather came and continued 'so long that oats had to be sown instead, and even these proved such a failure that they were, in many instances, fed off by sheep, and the land fallowed. The area under wheat was, therefore, not nearly so largo as it at one time promised to be, though it still showed an increase upon last year’s acreage. Oats, on the other hand, are a wide crop than waa anticipated, and as the lightest of them were fed off, the average yield has been improved, and will reach 35 bushels per acre. Wheat is estimated at 22 bushels. The Timaru district (including The Levels) will give a return of 20 bushels wheat, 32 bushels oats, and 35 bushels barley, some fine crops of the last having been ingathered. From Pairlie Creek and the Mackenzie Country returns have not reached us, but from our reports as to , the appearance of the crops they may safely be assumed to be equal to last year’s. In the southern parts of the country 22 bushels wheat and 35 bushels oats are calculated upon.

WAIMATE COUNTY,

From this quarter come the only accounts of any damage by weather having occurred to the grain after reaping, and even there the yield of the district will not be much affected. A little corn is stall in the fields, bat the bulk is either stacked or threshed. The return is not equal to expectations, and while at one time wheat was estimated to produce thirty bushels,' and oats forty bushels per acre, the estimate, for the ■country has now fallen to twenty bushels wheat and thirty-five bushels oats.

THE HAEYEST IN OTAGO,

JjPBOM ODB SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT. 3 The harvest m Otago is well advanced, and will be finished quite a month earlier fliim usual. Already the great bulk of the grain has been stacked, and every availablemachine is busily employed threshing from the stock, where that system is still adhered to—which is far too often the case, notwithstanding the amount of damage and loss sustained in previous years from storing or shipping grain in imperfect condition. The official returns of the yield are not yet complete, but those for the Dunedin district show an increase in the acreage under grain this season of about fifteen per cent, and in the gross production of about thirty per cent, compared with last season, and this will prove to be the general increase throughout the Province. Samples of the new season’s wheat and oats show both to be of splendid quality, and with very few exceptions the harvest has been secured in the best of order. Stocks of old grain are very low, and consist almost entirely of feed oats, most of which, together with all the new oats which have come forward, have already been disposed of. The spirt in the Sydney market has put growers of oats on good terms with themselves, and if the present demand there continues—of which there is a good prospect—the high production will be easily absorbed. The wneat market is hardly made yet, bat growers are confident in the future, and will not sell in the meantime unless at prices considerably in advance of present shipping values.

THE HAEYEBT IN SOUTHLAND. [from oue. special cobbespondknt.] Eivebton, March 15. The harvest in Southland this year will be one of the very best that we have ever had. The spring, as usual, was not favourable for putting in crops, but the summer has been all that we could wish—plenty of sun and warmth, without anything approaching to a drought—and although little threshing has been dona so far, the average yield must be considerably over that of any previous season. In consequence of a number of the large stations, such as Gladfield, Bays water. Merrivale, Five Eivers, and the Waimea Plains Company, giving up cropping on account of the unsatisfactory results of the last three years, the total acreage will be considerably less than usual, but the yield per acre will be much larger, and the quality far superior, to anything seen here. Owing to the crops ripening nearly a month earlier than usual, and the weather being good, they have so far been saved in splendid order. Wheat has been grown almost entirely on the rich river flat lands,and willgo very near an average of 40 bushels per acre, or taking all classes of land together, fully 35. Cats, which form far the largest acreage, and are grown on all sorts of lands, with all sorts of preparation, will vary from 80 bushels per acre on the well-cultivated flats, to as low as 15 on the undrained portionsj and as there is a large proportion of middling land always put into oats here, the average for the whole district will probably not exceed 30 bushels. There has hardly been any barley grown in the district, not more than 100 or 150 acres, and not on the best ■ land. We get so many showers usually during harvest time that no barley has been saved here fit for brewers, and the - farmers apparently have given np trying to grow it. Grass seed promised to be a really good crop, hut as the only unsettled weather we bad during the season came just at this’ time, it has not threshed out so well as expected. No doubt, owing . .. to a large quantity being lost with so much knocking about in the drying, the average •will be less, than twenty bushels. The collector of agricultural statistics being from home I am unable to give the exact , Acreages.'