ENGLAND’S BAD YEAR.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20292, 28 December 1927, Page 12

ENGLAND’S BAD YEAR.

A DISASTROUS HARVEST. English farmers have completed one of (he most unhappy harvests m the history of their industry (states the London correspondent of the Melbourne Argus). Fanning was in a bad way a year ago, so everyone uttered fervent hopes that fortune would be hind in 1927. Far from this being the case, the hay and corn harvests in the current year have been as bad as any in living memory. Not a few farmers are retiring, in order that they may no bo forced to throw more good capital after what has boon lost since the bonus upon corn production was withdrawn after the war. Not only if the yield of hay and corn low and the condition of stock poor, but (he wet weather has resulted in an immense growth of weed, so trial many la niters despair of properly clearing their fields.

The evil is the more trying because the crops of hav and grain would have, been generous if they could have been harvested ami stacked. Only in' the i>ast nf England—Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk—where the rainfall is normally low. have

satisfactory corn crops been gathered Swedes-, mmips, and sugar-beet have shown generous Yields in some districts, though here. also, harvesting has been difficult and expensive. On the whole, there is s.-areelv a farmer in Britain who is not estimating his present fortune m terms of Ihe smallne--- of lu-' los- rather than in tinamount of his profit. As a small yeoman farmer said recently when lie eontempbil -o his harve-t: “I reckon I'm lucky. I shan't lose more than £l5O this year.’’