GOOD RAIN.

Waipa Post, Volume 43, Issue 3392, 24 December 1931, Page 4

GOOD RAIN.

ONE of the farmers' many anxieties will be relieved by the heavy fall of rain which has occurred in most districts. The downfall represents an advance Christmas-box from Nature which will be as welcome in the towns as in the county. Many more people are growing vegetables this season and their concern lest their little sideline should come to nothing will help them to understand the difference these timely rains will make to those whose whole living is dependent on a sufficiency of moisture. New Zealand is fortunate in her climate in that she does not know, as Australia does, what a real drought means. Generally speaking New Zealand soils are not rich, our great asset being a kindly climate that alternates sunshine with rain. Sometimes there is too much of the one and too little of the other—all West Coast districts 2S months ago were complaining ot too much rain and sighing for sun and warmth to harden and put body into the pastures—but our meteorology does not run to the disastrous extremes familiar in continental lands. Hay and grain crops have suffered in the dry spell now ehded, and cultivation and sowing for winter fodder been delayed, but the rain has come in time to avert a serious decline in production.