WALKING OFF THE FARM

Waipa Post, Volume 31, Issue 1765, 1 June 1926, Page 6

WALKING OFF THE FARM

CONDITIONS IN SOUTH ISLAND.

LAND VALUES TOO HIGH.

“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 walked 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 hound 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 deteriorating. “From what I have seen down ISout'h, 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.”