THE WHEAT APPEAL

Marlborough Express, Volume LIV, Issue 129, 3 June 1920, Page 5

THE WHEAT APPEAL

» REPoWsE IN MMLB^ROUGH,

INOliEAsiD"'Ts<>WN'CfSi

- -Judgingl : from tK© sales of seed wheat • locally; the "appeal .maide by the Minister;: for Agriculture to the farmers to grow more wheat has not gone for nothing in The larger disposition of seed wheat by the flourmillers here .indicates that there will be increase^, sowings for the ensuing season; .. :; ; . , The production of wheat has been a very minor factor of the, agricultural industry in .Marlborough for many years, the farmers finding- it much 'more profitable to grow J oats and barley.; but it is anticipated that there will be a considerable recovery, in this respect in the near future— not so much because -the agriculturists' are looking on it as a payable proposition, as that they realise that a certain. amount of moral obligation devolves on them, as landholders, to save the country from what the Minister describes as "a really serious situation." Moreover, they are begmnig to realis* the economic truth of the. Minister's postulate that <'it is in- the true interests of the farming community that New. Zealand should produce all the wheat she requires. It h?is been remarked locally that the farmers are not hard to persuade in this matter. They would resent any. attack on the principle that ievey farmer is entitled to , form his land on lines which he considers are to his own best advantage; but they are not wholly selfish and unreasonable. "Oh, well; if the position*is as bad as all that," some of them have been heard to say. "I will put in some wheat." /And/ every acre helps.

Wheat has been grown as successfully in some parts of Marlborouah, in respect to both yield and quality, .is.in any other part of New Zealand. Last season well over eighty bushels per acre were taken off one farm at Spring Creek. »