MAKING FARMING PAY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 228, 26 September 1930, Page 6

MAKING FARMING PAY.

' • V . A SHILLING A POUND BASIS. (To the Editor.) Erankly what I do not know about farming would fill many 'boobs. I have, however fa* finished reading a circular about feraii : a 'basis of a shilling a pound for butterfat If what the writer states is the truth— and I ' have no hesitation in believing such is if,*. , case—then the farmer who is scientific can ' make money with butterfat at 1/ ,per lb or even less. I may know nothing about farmW 'but I have some considerable ..knowledge of the British market possibilities with butter at 1/ per lb. Cut this figuro down to lOd per lb and we could (quality being •maintained) ■ defy competition, prosperity would !be with us, our local industries' would develop and keep pace with our prosperity. Butter con-' ■sumption in Great Britain is not only a queg] tion of quality. Price is the dominating factor. If butter reaches too high a price hundreds of thousands—one could say millions—cease to buy. Substitutes are used. As soon as the price comes down consumption goes up. The mass of British consumers do not, cannot, define flavours and textures, etc " of butter. They disguise the flavour'with' • jam, ba,con, etc., but butter becomes a class distinction once it reaches a low, reasonable figure. Tommy Jones' boast was butter for 'breakfast, so all the Billy Smiths and Tommy Joneses quit bread and dripping and other. substitutes and buy butter. There i s an unlimited market for butter at lOd per lb '.an enormous market for it at 1/ per lb, and ' after this figure is reached the market quickly ■shrinks. The circular proves that on a one-hundred-acre farm, carrying 55 cows (capital cost of £4000, a return of 3501b per cow) a profit can be made at 1/ per lb. What would a one-hundred-acre farm, carrying one cow per aero, return? We have many thousands of acres of land that, with scientific cultivation and small holdings, could and should be carrying one cow per acre, each cow averaging 3501b. We have wasted, we continue to waste, hundreds of thousands of pounds on railways and other non-payable Government undertakings. If the Government had the nerve to forget votes for a time, cut out non-paying lines, construct roads .in place of railways, leave competitive transport alone, stop interfering with private enterprise, direct the money wasted on political railway lines to ' land development, it would pay the Government and be a good investment for the. Dominion to grant an individual free use of 100 acres of land for fifty years or more, providing such individual improved it within five years to one cow to two acres of land, with not less than 3201b average per cow and to pay him a bonus of £5 per extra cow per acre —the individual to have no right of sale, but free tenure. We have had enough land speculation. A. J. HUTCHINSON'.