WALKING OFF THE FARM

Waipa Post, Volume 31, Issue 1764, 29 May 1926, Page 2

WALKING OFF THE FARM

CONDITIONS IN SOUTH ISLAND.

LAXD VALUES TOO HIGH. A well-known King Country farmer, who has just returned from n vMt to jtlie 'South Island, has 1 come back firmly impressed with thel fact that the conditions in regard to farming are very little bdtter in the more settled districts of the South Island than in the King Countrji

"The King Country is not the only place where men are walking off their farms," said this gentleman to a King Country Chronicle representative. "There are large numbers in Canterbury who have had to make a fresh start, and lost heavily in land taken up during the boom period. The land was quite all right, but the price paid for it was too high, and this combined with the heavy cost of labour and material made it impossible for these men to make a livelihood out of their farms; so they turned it in. A wellknown breeder in Canterbury told me that he knew of six men, within a very small radius, who had Avalked off their properties because they could not make a living out of them.

"To give an instance of what is happening in Canterbury, I was told of a good, farm which was sold during the boom year at £lB an acre, the Government valuation then being £l4. The man who bought then had to give up and another took it over at £l3, but like his predecessor, could not make it pay. The place was eventually sold at £8 10s per acre, and the present holder is making the place pay, although he is no better a farmer than the two who had been before him. "In one way the South Island people have more reason and sense. The mortgagees, whether they are the Government or financial institutions, have realised that values were bound to come down. These values are being reduced a s quickly as possible, and the farms are soon taken up again. In the King Country the mortgagees -re hanging on to boom values, waiting for another boom that never comes. The properties are in the meantime deteri-

orating. "iFrom what I have seen down (South, the King Country, if given a fair chance, will hold its own with any part of the South Island as a farming district. This is not the only place where men are walking off their farms."