asked the Minister for Agriculture if he will state the estimated acreage of winter and spring wheat which has been sown this year.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Wheat Acreage.
Mr. Walsh
The only basis available at this period of the year on which to form an estimate of the acreage sown under wheat is the quantity of seed wheat sold by assemblers. Complete particulars of the sales in the current season are not yet available, but the information to date indicates that the sales so far are about the same as last year when the area under wheat was approximately 282,000 acres.
Is it a reasonable inference from that reply that in fact no increased acreage of wheat has been sown?
Mr. Walsh
That is quite wrong. There has, as far as my information goes.
I understood the Minister to say that he was calculating his estimate on the amount of wheat sold by the seed wheat assemblers.
Mr. Walsh
So far. We are still in the wheat-sowing season.
Is the Minister serious?
Deputy Norton should wait. He should not forget the Labour conference, 36 to 40.
I will never forget the Barnum masquerading as a Minister for Finance, the greatest blister with which this country has ever been afflicted. Having said that, may I ask the Minister for Agriculture a supplementary question if he will sit quiet while I ask it? Is it to be assumed from what the Minister has said in his reply that so far the acreage of wheat sown this year is approximately the same as it was last year and that the possibility of an increased acreage depends on whatever may be sown between now and the end of the spring sowing of wheat?
Mr. Walsh
The quantity of wheat sold by assemblers up to the present is equivalent to the amount sown last year during the period. That represents an area of 282,000 acres. I would like to inform the Deputy that the wheat-sowing period has not yet finished.
I agree. Are we to assume that the prospect of securing an increased acreage of wheat this year as compared with last year resides in whatever additional wheat may be sown between now and the end of the sowing season?
Mr. Walsh
It may not depend on that because there are a number of farmers who still have their own seed wheat At this stage it is very difficult to gauge, even knowing the amount of wheat distributed by the wheat assemblers, an acreage representing the amount sown.
Could the Minister say what increased acreage he anticipates from the information available to him?
Mr. Walsh
I could not answer that question.
Could the Minister give us an idea, in anticipation, of what acreage will be sown this year?
Mr. Walsh
I cannot tell you what can be sown still, but there is still this week for sowing wheat.
The Minister has not sown it.
Mr. Walsh
I have not to go to Mayo to learn where to grow wheat.
Growing weeds you are, not wheat.