ON THE LAND.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 66, 17 March 1916, Page 9

ON THE LAND.

Agricultural, Pastoral and Dairy Interests.

AUSTRALIAN FARM AND LIVE STOCK NEWS.

RICH HARVESTS. It is good to read of the rich harvests ■which the wheat farmers are gathering in this season right throughout the wheat belts of South Australia, Victoria, . and New South Wales. The straw growths are wonderful, in addition to the rich yields of grain. A case is quoted where a field of the Federation variety, usually one that has the poorest of stalks, reached over five feet. Off 700 acres one firm of two brothers took no less than 6000 bags, which means a fine old cheque with wheat at six shillings a bushel or thereabouts. From one paddock a farmer in the Wagga district gathered at the rate of 16 bags to the acre. The grain is of such a good quality that it is weighing up to 631b to the Imperial bushel. An interesting feature of the season is the marked success of Federation, one of the Farrer creations. Over a wide area in the Wagga district the crop will average 20 bushels to the acre. An unfortunate thing is that the railways in N.S.W. have no chance to lift the whole of the crop within a reasonable time, so that if heavy rains happen along there is sure to be great losses. For years the farmers have appealed to the Commissioners for more rollingstock, but the growth of the industry has been so great that they cannot keep pace with it. So the farmer has to gaffer in a good year as well as in a bad. LABOUR SCARCITY. There has been a great scarcity of Jabour in the wheat fields this year. The war has had much to do with this, and the heavy crops have accentuated the difficulty. But it is wonderful what families have done unaided. Fine weather helped them, and they -worked with a great heart, knowing that they were assured of a good price, and that the surplus was going to help feed the fighting force at the front. There is, of course, a determination amongst a great many of the farmers to do with as little of the union labour as possible, owing to the demands which have been set up in the rural log. This is a natural result of the aggressiveness of labour. The same thing is noticeable in the dairy districts, where more and more the farmer is limiting his operations to the capacity of his own family. An Italian in Riverina, with the aid of hie daughter, harvested nearly 300 acres of wheat without any other help than their own. The father drove the harvester, while the daughter sewed the bags up, besides attending to the household duties, as the mother is dead. She also assisted the father to stack the bags. The instance offers a. striking example of self-reliance. GOVERNMENT AS SHARE-FARMER. The Government of New South Wales, $;b.,W h .ha&.been daibling:in.primary prois proposing Urirttenipt a sharefanning scheme with tenants. The idea is to 6et apart a large aTea of wheat land and subdivide it into farms. The ■Hocks are to contain about 800 acres. This will give 500 for fanning and the balance ior grazing. Tlie leases are to last for ten years. Of the 500 acres for farming the tenant must at least plant half the area with grain each year and ■fallow the other 250. This will ensure a thorough system of cultivation. Ten acres must be eet aside for forestry, and planted with approved trees, and on these blocks sheep must be run, assistance being given for the purchase of them by the Department. The sharefarmer must find his own equipment for putting in and taking off the crop. He is also to find his share of the bags, besides paying his share of the cartage. The fanner's share of the hay and grain crop -will be two-thirde. The rent to the Crown will be 25 per cent on the unimproved capital value of the land. The State will take one-third the value of the crop and find it? share of the bags. It must also find the whole of the manure, and pay ite share of the cartage. Houses will be built for the settlere. the land will be clenred and fenced, while a store will be established in a convenient centre on co-operative lines. The scheme reads well on paper. But will it work out on practice? It is worth a trial. OUTLOOK FOR FRUIT. It is one thing in these times to produce a heavy crop, but it is another to get rid of it. The wheat fanners were lucky in that there was a good demand for all they had for export, and that the Federal Government had the control of bottoms, which will at length account for it all. But the fruitgrowers are not so well off. It is true that the Federal Government will be able to shift one and a-quarter million-cases to Great Britain and elsewhere, but that will still leave a larpe quantity to be got rid of locally. This surplusage is reckoned at a million cases. The South Australian Government has decided to initiate a house-to-houee delivery scheme, for they know as others know that if the glut is left to the tender mercies of the merchants, apples and pears will be a drug on the market, and be practically valueless to the grower. It has been arranged in Adelaide that the country stationmaeters will take ordere and act as agente. In th? cities orders will be booked by runner?, and carriers will deliver. This is precisely the plan that has been advocated in these columns Ml several yea.s now. It is time that the fruitgrower* Acre relieved from the condition which meant robbery to many of them. If the agents refuse to be fair and progreasivp. then they cannot blame the Government, or the municipal authoritie?. stppping in and organising the work o? distribution. SHORTAGE OF EXPERTS. The war is soing to affect the industry in Australia in" a peculiar way. We were short enough of agricultural experts, goutiness knows, but a number of them have left their bones at Anzac, »i>ile others are still at the front, or arc called to other war duties. A good number of the certificated students of tlie various colleges are accounted for in the same way. It was only during the past few Years that the hidebound officials who sit in authority in the Agricultural Department would give way to the contention that more and more of such officers were wanted. But now there is a set-back promised to the success whioh seemed assured. Another reason why wo wanted more of these erpertc was to a-wist the movement which proposes to put co many of the returned eoldieTs on the land. It is ■utter foolishness to 6uppose that all -we will have to do Trill be to dump tbeee

men down on the land, and that they will succeed. They will require a great deal of capable supervision, and to this end it would be advisable if the Government looked around for the smartest of the young farmers who are available to fill the bill ac instructors. They will be of great assistance, though the trained experts would have been preferable. The chance is improved for young men with tastes for the professional side of land husbandry taking up the study. There -will be plenty room for them. PREPARING FOR THE RETURNS. All sorts of schemes are in the air in the various States to provide returned soldiers with land. Bar Queensland, few of the States have any quantity of Crown lands available, and even in the State named they do not seem to have a great deal without building railways to make them accessible. In New South Wales a few patriotic spirits have offered estates at very low rates for subdivision, but some of the offers showon the face of it-an attempt to get rid of properties at good prices. The greatest difficulty is to get land near towns, in order that small fanning might be pursued by the soldiers, many of whom will be maimed. Not any of the States have yet tackled the problem of a new industry within a given radius, co that one settler might help the other. If the Government assisted in the treatment of the crops this looks the beet solution of the problem. Cotton might be cited as an example. For thirty years Queensland has fooled with this industry, but it makes no progress, for the simple reason that no one tackles it with determination. There would be no difficulty about it if .it were established on such lines, and it would be of tremendous importance to Australia and the Empire. Silk is another, made specially attractive as maimed soldiers could carry it on. Then there are various fibres, poultry farming, and so on. FLOUR INSTEAD OF GRAIN". In this column it has been urged more than once that the Australian States should export flour instead of wheat, for three very specific reasons—that freight would be saved, that work would be found for our own men in milling, and that we would save the offal, which now went to enrich foreign countries at less rates than it could be bought here. The Federal Government has, in pursuit of these ideas, sold to the Allies 200,000 tons of flour, instead of exporting so much grain. The real truth is that the Australian flour has no peer in the markets of Europe, and by selling the grain we were not getting full credit for our product, which was largely used for blending with inferior grain. While the export of wheat is in the hands of speculators they will use their best efforts to send away the grain instead of the flour, but more than likely the end of private enterprise in this direction has been reached. The need for the Federal Government to have a keener grip of-export matters looks like asserting itself''iiEifi3ed"p~dliey. 'EheLealyway that the interference can be thwarted is for the producers to co-operate on a large scale, handling their own stuff right up to the door of the consumer. WHEAT OFFAL AND MANURE. There is yet another reason why the milling of flour in the country of production is of moment. We all know the priceless value of the bran and pollard to stock, as a fodder, and how short have been these commodities during the recent drought, and which could not often be procured in some cases for love or money. But stock fed on wheat offal return to the soil constituents of the highest value. So long'as we were exporting the whole grain we were losing this most useful fertiliser, besides which we were sending out of the country red gold to buy other fertilisers not to" goodr When Dr. Cherry was the director of agriculture in Victoria he used to urge this matter in and out of season, but it always fell on deaf ears. The exporters were doing too well to take any notice of it. while the fanners could not take enough interest in the idea to turn a wheel. He calculated that in every twenty million bushels there were IS.OOO tons of superphosphates. Those who have to buy this manure can easily reckon up the value of so colossal g. sum. especially as it was expected at 'the beginning of the export season Australia would send away a million and a half tons —not bushels. DAIRYING rnOSPERITY IX VICTORIA. No one win begrudge Victoria the beneSts of the splendid season ehe is enjoying. Not only is she gathering in the "greatest wheat and hay harvest on record, but the dairymen have never had such lavish smiles from Nature. In addition to the heavy yields of grain and chaff and butter, there is the added advantage that prices have been phenomenal, mainly due to fodder scarcity in both New South Wales and Queensland. The latter State is still suffering from a lack of rain, and though thi3 is the middle of the monsoonal season so far the rains have been scattered, and in come pastoral districts there has been very little. All round, however, conditions so far are an improvement on last year, and it is believed that we are on the eve of better things. It ie very ' plain that prices are going to remain J high for all classes of products, and for , that reason those who can do so are i preparing themselves to get all the I advantage possible. The recuperative ! powers of this country are so remarkiable that with a couple of good years, I and the war ended, there -would be no i trepidation in facing the extra taxation i which the cleaninj up of the war seems 'bound to entail. Though some people belonging to the conservative school of thouaht affect to believe that the legislation of the Labour party is sure to bring serious troubk', the writer is one who thinks that politicians do not seriously stir the industrial atmosphere very much, and if the seasons are kind :it does not matter a great deal which brand is in power.

COWS AXD EEGUIARITY. Most dairymen know the value of regularity, but they may not all be prepared for the contention that if milking is delayed for ten minutes after th« regular time the test is affected. And if the test is affected, co is the yield: The authority for this tribute to the value of punctuality is Mr. Kdgeway, the winner of the Tucker Cup competition at Colac, Vie, who is desirous that al; dairymen might benefit by hi 3 theory. !He says that prior to the test of hie cows for several weeke he and his sons milked each cow at as near as possible the appointed time each day. He found that .f there was the slightest variation the animal did not do herself justice. He turned down as contributors to the competition those animals which showed variation when milked regularly, as they could not be relied upon. This characteristic was probably due to nervousness, though Mr. Ridgeway does not say co. 11 is well known that some cows are affected by the least thing—by a dog running about the yard, fowls pestering them, or 6trangcrs being present. Other cows are not disturbed by any of these things, and it is in regard to animals of such a temperament that the weight of the choice should fall, other things being equal when selections are being made as studs. While referring to Mr. Kidgeway's opinion, so well-known a judge as Mr. Brisbane, supports the theory, and 6aye that a delay of five or ten minutes will affect a cow's return.