EFFECTS OF DROUGHT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23810, 17 May 1939, Page 3

EFFECTS OF DROUGHT

SHORT DAIRYING SEASON POSITION IN AUCKLAND (Special to Daily Times.) AUCKLAND, May 16. Accentuating the normal seasonal decline in the dairy yield, repercussions of the long dry spell in the autumn are still being felt throughout the farming districts of the Auckland Province. May is customarily a slack month for the farmers, but even less butter-fat than usual is now being produced The drab brown pastures of March and April may appear to have 'been transformed into green sward, but many farmers complain that they are starting the winter with very little feed In their paddocks. Although the supply from the Increasingly reduced herds will linger on, the dairying season is virtually over in the Waikato. In the Morrinsville and Te Awamutu districts, the yield has dropped to nothing, and Is well below the level of the corresponding month last year, when the output was materially affected by the epMemic of stock eczema. North Auckland dairying districts were also affected by the dry conditions, and. similarly to the more southern farm lands factories, report that the season is practically over.