SOUTH AUSTRALIAN WHEAT HARVEST.

Timaru Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 3576, 17 March 1886, Page 3

SOUTH AUSTRALIAN WHEAT HARVEST.

Tho Adelaide correspondent of the Argus says that "tho avorago yield from die area sown m South Australia is put down nl ti little over two and a-half bushels, per nerc, or threobushola ten pounds from the an?a reaped. This area is sot down at 1,630,000 acres, or more than 300,000 acres less than last year. But tho area sown is computed at 1,P5U,0C0 acres, so that 320,000 acres were not reaped at 1 all. On a largo proportion of this vast tract of country tho seed never germinated, or if it 1 grow it died almost as soon a9 it appeared ( above the ground. Tho eauso o£ the terrible | ' failure is drought and red rust. There was 1 a dry seeding time, a dry growing time, and 1 a dry maturing time- Tho rainfall pvpr ffyo pulk of agricultural districts did : hot come up to tho averago by from 2in to Sin, and thia following a dry season ■ explains how it is tho,t the wucat plant had an insuflicient amount of moisture to nourish and develop it. Where it grew it grew 1 weakly, utterly unable to resist tho ravages 1 of rust whon that fell disease, induced by 1 favouring olimatio conditions, made its ap--1 pearance. Tho gross outturn for tho season ! is estimated at 5,161,666 bushels, and leavos, 1 after deducting 3,800,000 bushols for seed 1 and food, the small quantity of 1,361,660 bushels for oxport. 'Xhi» turned into shipping tons, represents 30,500 tons, or 283,000 tons less than wero actually oxported from the colony last joar. In quantity, tho loss as compared with last season is about 10,000,000 - bushels, and m valuo the loss, at a low computation, is not less than one million nnd ■ ft-half sterling." i ' '