LAND, STOCK & CROPS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 50, Issue 137, 22 March 1930, Page 9

LAND, STOCK & CROPS

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

(By “The Tramp.’ 5 )

After inspecting the up-to-date milking sheds on one Morrinsville dairy farm, members of the overseas fanners ’party expressed surp'lse at tinobsolete and iueonyemeut sheds at the Government experimental fnvm at Ituakura, writes the Thames correspondent of the “Weekly News.” Waikato farmers, who were escorting them were rather ashamed to notice this failure of the Department of Agriculture to keep up with the times, and agreed that many farmers had newer machines and more convenientlyplanned sheds.

In his welcoming address to the Empire farmer tourists, Mr J. Brown, chairman of the Taranaki Producers Freezing Company, gave an indication that there would be an increased production in North Taranaki this year, amounting to 60,000 boxes of butter. That would mean that a total of 300,000 boxes ‘of butter and 240,000 crates of cheese would be handled, as against 242,000 boxes of butter and 240,000 crates of cheese last year. This should enable farmers to face the decreased pay-out.

According to the Statistician the recession in the value of exports this year shows the great influence that prices have on the primary production of the Dominion. Despite increases in the quantity figures for the main exports, declining values have reduced the excess of exports of £11,500,000 for the 12 months ended January, 1929, to £4,750,000 for the same period ended January, 1930. increased production is evident m the dairying and pastoral industries, although the figures for cheese point to a level below that of last year, but smaller areas and comparatively low average yields, owing to the unfavourable season, indicate a reduced return from agricultural production.

The Otago and Southland freezing works have been kept fairly busy Ruling the past few weeks, despite the fact that the lambs are not coming forward very rapidly at present. There have been no drafts of feed lambs sent to the works yet, and practically all the lambs taken fat off the mothers have been sent to the works, only a series of minor drafts of declining quality being obtainable at present. The works have been able to maintain practically full time, however, as a large number of ewes and wethers have been killed for export. So far, the works have handled a very much larger number of lambs than lias ever previously been the case- This is considered to be due chiefly to the fact that the schedule of prices has coincided with that in Canterbury this year, and for the first time m the histibry of the industry southern woi ks have been able to offer farmers a definite premium, and it is no longer profitable to send lambs chit of the province for killing, freezing, and export. , . ~ A further drop has occurred in the lamb schedule to take effect from Monday next, and the schedule is now at the lowest. level for three or four seasons. The rates are now as follow: For first quality lambs, under 3/lb, 73d; from 371 bto 421 b, 7id; from 421 b to 501 b, Oldover 501 b, Bid. For seconds, under 361 b, 63d; for over 361 b, 6d.

“The scrub bull must go,” said the Under-Secretary for Scotland (Air Tom Johnston) in the course of a speech he made at Stii'ling recently, when he was the guest at a farmers’ luncheon, held by the National Farmers’ Union ot Scotland. Mf Johnston said that sooner or later the nation would require to face the fact that agriculture, at m some of its phases, was undergoing serious handicaps and difficulties, and that it was the duty not only of the industry itself, but of elected- re pi sentatives of the nation to see that the primary producers had adequate remuneration for their labour and services. Reviewing what the Scottish Officehad done and were doing in the interests of agriculture, he said they were pushing the marketing of Home beet, and it the Departmental Committee on A-gn-eultural Co-operation could them any feasible scheme to help in co-opei ative marketing, the Scottish Otnce •would do everything possible to assist. He could not promise the date of the introduction of legislation, but lie could say that the old “scrub” bull must go. Other countries had turned him out, and Scotland and England also would have to turn him out.

In- the course of his remarks at the dinner which the New Zealand High Commissioner gave to the GovernorGeneral (Lord Bledisloe), prior to his Excellency’s departure from England, Mr WilforjJ said: ■ Lord Bledisloe will find las knowledge of farming, particularly of grassland farming, of very great value when he gets to New Zealand. Probably more than any other country, New Zealand depends for her existence almost entirely on grass-land production—94 per cent, of her exports are “off the grass” —and a very large proportion of those exports are sold in Great Britain. New Zealand is, m fact as closely linked to her chief .market ’ Great Britain, as if she were no further away than Ireland. How best " to increase her economic production from grass-land, and how best to develop the prosperity of the Empire, are the two great problems with . whicn New Zealand is faced; and, being a Dominion of eupeptic-s, the Home Country may relay on these problems being eventually solved. Lord Bledisloe will find in New Zealand a (Department of Agriculture which devotes more attention to grassland problems than any Department of Agriculture in the world a big statement to make, but a tnie one. The growing of gram and root crops and of fruit are of importance, but of lesser importance than better (passland production. What grasses should be grown, how improved strains can best be produced, what improvements in the quality and quantity of the pastures can lie obtained by the use o fertilisers, how mineral deficiencies—particularly in some areas can be overcome, what systems of grass-la:n management are most profitable, ho the problems of animal nutrition ar effected as the result of application of the recent grass-land knowledge—these are the questions he will find being discussed, not only by the British and New Zealand scientists in the various centres of agricultural research, but by keenly-interested farmers in all parts of New Zealand. Everywhere Lord Bledisloe will find farmers who are conversant with the recent pasture work in Europe and its application to the somewhat different _ conditions in New Zealand, and he will not in consequence be surprised to find a high standard of pasture management in the leading dairy areas. , Perhaps it will be found, at the end

of Lord Bledisloe’s term of office, that New Zealand is leading the world in the study of grass-land problems and in the application of the soundest methods of grass-land production.