The Price of Oats. TO THE EDITOR.

Otago Witness, Issue 2284, 9 December 1897, Page 21

The Price of Oats. TO THE EDITOR.

Sir,— l notice in your iN*ug, of the 2<id inst. your own correspondent at Invercargill takes the party sieuins himself " Sefciler, Wright's Bush," to tafck for advising tho farmers to hold for higher prices. If the letter took any effect at all, from what took place afterwards, it must have been a good one. The new season's oats opened at Is 6d to Isßd the best milling, and "at the time the letter appeared" had not^xceeded Is lud. This is what I wrote:— "The farmers should hold for higher 13 rices, and 2s per bushel could have been got for all the surplus oats grown in New Zealand this season, and if all the oat* were in merchants' hands instead of fanners they would soon be 2s 6d."

What took place afterwards : oats went up to 2s, 2s 3d, and the best milling 2s 6d. The bulk of the farnicw sold at these prices. lam confident that for every farmer that has sold at 3d less "than the current rate ruling at the time my letter appeared " there are at least 50 who have sold at from 3d to 6d more, so that I cannot see where the bad advice came in. What is the cause of the present decliue ? Agents in Dunedia require their stores for wool — force sales, and have to accept lower prices to make them. Last season after the same pressure pvicea improved 3d per bushel, and my opinion is they will do so again, provided farmers do not force sales too much. They must bear in mind their doing so only retards sales and brings down prices. The coming season looks anything but bright for large crop 3of grain. What with extremely dry weather in some parts of Australia and the northern part of this island, and the wet and stormy weather in Southland, the cbancci are that both wheat and oats will sell at good prices. The failure of the oat crop in Ireland will have a tendency to raise prices even higher at Home than at present. — I am, etc., Wright's Bush, December 6. Settler,