NEWS FROM CENTRAL OTAGO.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLII, Issue 8, 10 January 1908, Page 5

NEWS FROM CENTRAL OTAGO.

CROPS RIPENING PRE-

MATURELY

WATER FAMINE THREATENED.

[press association.]

DUNEDIN, Jan. 10. The effect of the continued dry weather in Central Otago. is being severely felt by the mining and agricultural industries. During the past three weeks, the heat about Alexandra and Cromwell has been excessive, the thermometer on several occasions registering 100 in the shade and 130 in the sun. As a result of the prevailing hot winds the crops are ripening before their time, and unless steady rain falls soon there is, every promise of the country's being dried up completely. Grass paddocks that only a couple of weeks ago looked better than they had done for years are now burnt up, but the turnip crops are reported to be good, and in some cases far above the average yield. In Alexandra water for domestic purposes is running short, and a water famine in the near future is threatened.

The Dunedin Star's Alexandra correspondent says that the Borough Council recently purchased valuable rights for two heads from Butcher's Gully, which is fed from the Old Man's Range, where water even now is plentiful, and the residents are agitating that the Government be applied to for a loan of £800 to enable water to be brought into town from this source.

Mining- throughout the district is at a standstill, owing to the want of water.