A NORTH OTAGO DROUGHT.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLV, Issue 65, 17 March 1911, Page 2

A NORTH OTAGO DROUGHT.

A POOR LOOK-OUT.

[JBOM OUE COBRMPQNDENT.] CHR&TCHUKiCH, March 16. Never befofce has North Otago experienced so; continuous, so generaJL. so desolating "a drought as that which now has the ,p'a¥ch«d' arid cracked: throat of the clamoring for cooling,.draughts. .Everywherethe eye is-wear left'T>y tlie • monotony 'of dun-colored earsh, where were wont to be g|rcen'fields,, as f the result of the p&ueity of ram. • During several years ■ the1 grasses have become impoverished, and there are now many old fields in which tb£ Pasture has xiied right out. The fpxjo of,the country is a desert oi, dust, and the only visual distinction between the roadline and the lea. 'and is the.boundary ~fence. Naturally, then, stock is in a sorry plight, and -equally naturally pastoralists have <hsen<mmbered themselves of the responsibility of their charges, so far as the demands of the market will permit. A ca.nv.ass of the stock firms in town gives the O&maru Mail authority for seating that not less than 150,000 store sheep have ' beten railed away frdm North Otago, within the past two months. Thieste include lambs which in the past have gone away as %ts, but which bad this year to be finished off elsewhere. There is also among the number a large proportion of ewes, which, when the climate becomes normal again and feed reappears, will have to be repurchased. Fortunately until recently feed in parts of Canterbury and Southland has beer, plentiful, and the demand for sheep was good, so that selling has not entailed an absolute sacrifice, but the farmer who has hadi to get rid of his young ewes oan hardly anticipate to re-stock without considerableloss. Now that the scarcity of feed is general it is difficult to find a market at all.

Thei owner of cattle is in even a jvbrse plight than the sheep man, for he can find no market whatever for his cows, except as potters. At sales good cows out of profit realise the handsome sum of 6s, and' the poorer animals are worth the value of the hidto. ' t The exodus of this class'of stock is unprecedented, and the district is poorer by not less than 1000 head of cattle. In fact, the country is becoming almost denuded of stock..