WAIMATE.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIV, Issue 18847, 9 April 1931, Page 12

WAIMATE.

THE POTATO CROP. The Waimate district has for many years been one of the principal sources of supply from which potatoes in the South Island are drawn, and any serious shortage in the estimated yields in the local crops is bound to affect the market price throughout the Dominion. This being the case, if the crops already dug are at all a reliable guide, then the outlook is that a considerable difference will be experienced between the estimated yield and the actual crop. A well-known farmer, speaking to a “Timaru Herald 7 ’ representative yesterday, said that he had contracted to supply a mercantile firm with fifteen tons of tubers, and put what he thought was a sufficient number of men to work to get the order fulfilled to schedule time. The crop gave promise of yielding at least the usual ten tons per acre, but the diggers had not been long on the job when they approached their employer with the information that they could not make wages on the crop. The farmer, on investigating, found that unfortunately the complaint was only too well founded, and had straightway to put the men on by the bag, and had also to engage an extra couple of hands to give delivery in time. The crop, when measured up, was found to yield only five tons to the acre, which is unprecedentedly low for the locality in which it was grown, and the disappointed grower spent nearly all the next day visiting farms in various parts of the district to compare notes with other farmers. At each farm visited, it was found that although as in the case of the first-men-tioned crop the tops promised extremely well, the yields will be very little over half what was anticipated.