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Southland Times, Issue 22915, 13 June 1936, Page 15

He would be an optimist who would predict a generous wool clip for next season (says The Australasian). More than half the merino country is in a bad way. In Western Australia the seasonal conditions could scarcely be worse. Very few lambs will be marked and grown sheep are dying in that State. Much of the South Australian back country is also suffering from drought and similar conditions prevail over extensive areas of New South Wales. Even the favoured Western and Wimmera districts of Victoria are bare of feed. Only some of the coastal parts. Eastern Victoria, Eastern and Northern New South Wales, Queensland, and Tasmania are enjoying favourable seasonal conditions, and rain is needed everywhere. If bountiful rains are delayed much longer, serious losses of sheep are almost sure to occur. In any case, it is expected that the lambing will be light. It is well to remind those who are not familiar with the state of the country of these facts. Nowadays the manufacturing section of the wool trade is apt to take an Australian 3,000,000-bale clip or more for granted.

Some of the most intensive phosphatic deposits occur in Russia, and in the past few years the soviets have made big strides in utilizing them. Although a bonus of £5OO was offered in New Zealand for the discovery of worthwhile deposits of phosphate rock resulting in the country being thoroughly explored by geologists, only one workable area has been exploited. This was at Clarendon, south of Dunedin, where for a number of years supplies were obtained for fertilizer purposes in the South Island. Recent investigations carried on in connection with the irrigation project in Canterbury, indicate that the silt deposit in the Rakaia River has a good percentage of phosphate. However, no worthwhile deposit of phosphate in the watershed has ever been discovered.