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New Zealand Tablet, 11 January 1917, Page 29

The hot and dry weather of the past few weeks (says the Oamaru Mail) has brought the grain crops forward at a great rate, some being already ripe. In several places, in fact, the reapers and binders have become busy cutting, particularly on the Maejewhenua, where a good deal of reaping is being carried on. Of course, all this means that the crops have been prematurely ripened, and that the grain will be comparatively small, but hard and thin in the shell. Yields will consequently not be so good as they would have been had a good rain been experienced in December to provide the moisture required to enable full development of the berry. Still, yields in many cases will be fairly good, though rather poor in others. Some wheat crops will probably thresh out from 35 to 40 bushels per acre, while early-sown oats will turn out well. As to: the oats that were sown in the spring, they can, as a general rule, be written down as a failure, many paddocks being too poop to warrant the' cost of harvest-