Pastures Past: Weather and farming in the 1930s

Ted Dreckow (left) watches a shearer in action at the first Merino Shears in 1961.

Kem Ormond takes a look at the world of farming as it was in the 1930s.

Farmers of today still have to contend with the same problems they had to deal with in the 1930s - namely lousy weather at cropping and shearing time.

Unfavourable weather can be a nightmare, but when sunny days arrive, the pace gets stepped up.

Here are a couple of newspaper articles from the 1930s that illustrate how the world of farming has always been at the mercy of the weather.

Shearing delayed

New Zealand Herald, December 29, 1938

Hawke’s Bay District

Flocks in High Country

Hold-up caused by rain

[By Telegraph - own correspondent]

Hastings, Wednesday

It is a long time since shearing in Hawke’s Bay has been so persistently hampered by unfavourable weather as has been the case this season with the continuance of boisterous and showery weather.

It is likely that shearing in parts of the district, more especially in the case of high-country flocks, will extend well into January.

Owing to a series of delays caused by the weather many sheds are behind schedule.

It is reported that on some stations where the sheds are generally cut out by Christmas a start has not yet been possible.

By degrees shearing has been cleared up on most lower country properties, but on high country stations there is still a number of clips to be taken off.

The shearing season was no sooner under way than there were delays through heavy rain, which threw shearers out in their schedules for the season.

In spite of all the rain experienced the clips are reported to be coming off the sheep in really good order.

Sunny days

Unfavourable weather is not great for the harvesting of crops.

Wanganui Chronicle, January 10, 1931

Shearing in progress

The improvement in the weather has worked wonders in helping on cultivation and shearing and also in the appearance of grass and oat paddocks.

The oat crop is bound to be late in most places and a late harvest is seldom a satisfactory one either for quality or yield, though most of the oat crop now is cut for chaff.

Shearing of dry sheep is now being pushed ahead, but very few breeding ewes are shorn yet.

Some owners are anxious to get the first draft of lambs away before shearing, as no matter how careful the handling may be lambs invariably have a set-back at shearing.

- Source: Papers Past