ORARI.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1456, 19 January 1886, Page 2

ORARI.

[From Our Own Correspondent]. Since my last communication, Orari, in common with all the world, has seen the old year out and the new one in, and we are again settled down to our normal state of existence after our usual holiday season and the various little excitements which accompany that period, and are now steadily contemplating our everyday duties, with, in the majority of cases, a shade of anxiety making itself apparent. During the year which has just glided into the past, wo have not had many causes for rejoicing, so far as our business prospects are concerned. In this locality we are, as a rule, an agricultural and pastoral community, and during the past

year our products have bean below the average in yield, and the prices far under what w» have been accustomed to consider fair value ; so that latterly we have got into the habit of living on our hopes for the future, trusting that a good harvest would put all right again. But how far those hopes may now be realised would be hazardous even to conjecture, as with the long prevailing drought, and winda hot as blasts from a furn»ce, this part of the district is literally parched. Dnring the past day or two I have been through a good many parts of the district, and everywhere I observe the grain crops showing appearances the reverse of favor* able, and where alternate tracts of clayey and shingly soil occur in paddocks the ripening will be very uneven, and on the latter the grain shows evident signs of, ripening before maturing. Thia ia more noticeable in oats. As for grass, I have seen hundreds of acres which would require many weeks of the most favorable weather before they can possibly be available for stock.

The year just closed presents us with a higher ratio of mortality than uiual, tB during the last twelve months no loss than six out of our sparce population have been summoned to join the ailent majority, and as I write a funeral pro* cession balf-a-mile in length nccom* panics to her last resting place tbe wife of one of our oldest settlers.