TOPICS OF THE DAY

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21242, 12 October 1940, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY

Harvest in Britain The harvest of 1940 in Britain has been one of the earliest and best-gathered in the memory of man, says the Spectator, London. The crop showed no better than moderate, taken all round—the wheat above average, the oats very much below. But such as it was, over large parts of the south, at any rate, it has now all been stacked, in first-class condition and with a minimum of labour for the farmers. The result is that (given moderate rain in a not too distant future) they should be able to make an unusually early start with next year’s crops; and after ploughing their stubbles and sowing under the best conditions their winter-wheat, winter-oats and rye-grass, they should have a much better chance than last year to expand their areas of arable. To this expansion the Ministry of Agriculture and its county agricultural committees must now bend their energies anew. The last autumn, winter and spring presented extraordinary difficulties for a ploughing-up policy, and the amount achieved did not bring the country’s arable back even to the acreage of 1914. We ought now boldly to aim at that of 1918.