NORTH ISLAND PASTORALISTS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18447, 7 January 1922, Page 7

NORTH ISLAND PASTORALISTS

HAVING A HARD TIME. f ; (From Oca Own Correspondent.) '• . CHRISTCHURCH, January 6. .’ A North Island pastorahat, at present visiting Christchurch, manfckmod m the course of a chat with a Press reporter that sheep farmers generally throughout >. thja. north were having a much berdertupe than:, down herd. There 'were no finowoob' in the north worth 12d to 15d per lb, and generally land values were much-, higher than lie re. Principally all the wool.in the extensive stretching from . Rangitiktei up throughr tho Main Trunk to the dalryinjgi country of the Wtikato was,coarse, of 36 to W count, which to-day was worth no more than did! to 5d per lb. Before the war good cleared hush country was reckoned worm £6 to £7 per qheep per acre per annum, so that two-sheep laoa whs valued at £lB to £l4- per acre. . A,lot of this good country was sold dur«^', l 'Jhe boom at over £2O per acre,’ and, as os Jhe case -with bush country, after a mraber;qt years, a good deal of it goes back in oarrying capacity, and two-sheep land of 10 yq«fs ago i§ now no better than one and ajiaif.. Assuming that an average sheep shears 91b to 101 b of wool, this .would mean, 'at 4&d per lb, 5s to 5s 6d per acre. H the lamb crop happened to be 100 per cent,,, at He per head this would mean another ’ 16s 6d revenue, or 22s to 23s per-acre,, altogether not enough to pay 6 per cent, du the purchase money of the lam. In such, oases the costa of running .the plane, loud tax, and the growers’ living have to. come out of any capital he may have f for tm hill country, or the Miain Trunk, therb is practically only one souroe of revonoe—“the sheep.” , •'