The Times: A Ray of Hope.

Mataura Ensign, Issue 13, 30 July 1895, Page 2

The Times : A Ray o f Hope.

m (By " Ovis " in • Country Journal '). After all, hope is the great spur to industry. This season, for instance, wheat will be gown on every available acre of land, simply because the present rise in price stimulates the feeling tf hopefulness, and not because there are any special and definite reasons for expecting tho price of wheat next year to bf> any better than it was last year or the year before. When the price of any-< commodity is down, there are always* a certain number of peopl*, prone to de- , spondenoy, who are always - ready to assert, and to give proofs and reasonsloT^ their assertions^tbat the prioe can never ~" rise again, bu', notwithstanding all predictions, prices do recover and men regain hope, and the wheels of industry are set in motion with accelerated vigor. - Not more than three months ago, wheat was worth little more than 2s a bushel, oat? not more thon Is, and store sheep were almost unsalaable. Sinee theD, wheats and oats have rißen more than fifty per cent in value, and the demand for store sheep has improved considerably. Very few could have been so sanguine as to anticipate an improvement in the demand for store sheep before the end of the winter, but the fact of such an improvement having taken place seems to afford fairly good grounds for expecting a further development in the same direction on the return of spring. An unprecedentedly large number of sheep nave been killed for freezing and boiling doVn purposes during the laat six months, and that, tegether with an improvement in the wool and mutton markets, must inevitably tell on the sheep market aB soon as fresh feed is available. Under the present aspect of matters, and, judging in the light of past experience, the advisable course of operation would be to sow such lan4 to wheat as i3 available ; that is to sayfland that is in Buob. a state that it ntaygreasonably be expected to grow an avijfiffe crop, but by no means to rush lanMnto wheat from which an average yield; £ifnnot be reasonably expeoted. Of caiMb the time for winter sowing is past, ObiSl there is probably more land in the'teountry available for spring than .for winter wheat. ' A Rood deal of turnip land will come in for spring sowing. No doubt a large breadth of oats Will* be sown under the stimulus of present prices, and also in view of the New South Wales market being thrown open. The oat market, however, is easily glutted, and it would be a mistake to neglect the flock for the sake of either wheat or oats. Eat lambs, after all, bring in the readiest return, and even at the moderate price ruling this pant season, yield the farmer his largest profits, with the exception of a lucky wheat crop. But lueky wheat crops, good yield and good price going together, occur at long interval', whereas fat lambs are a steadier thing, and tho profits more to be relied upon. On a weli-ordered farm, sowing a somewhat greater or lesser breadth of grain does not interfere with due provision bring ' made for the flock. Some farms, howeve I*,1 *, are not well ordered, and there is too strong a tendenoy to go to extremes. The price of wheat perhaps goes up, and, simultaneously, the prioe of sheep goes down. The flock is at once more or less discarded or neglected, and wheat is made the great object, bu*, likely enough, before the wheat crop is harvested, the prios of wheat has fallen and the price of sheep has risen, and bo toe unstable man pays the penalty of his instability.