APPLYING SCIENCE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 1, 3 January 1933, Page 5

APPLYING SCIENCE.

CANTERBURY FARMS.) OFFSETTING LOW PRICES. PROPER FEEMNG METHODS. (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, this day. That the depression among the farming community would not be so acute if the latest advances in scientific agriculture were applied to land operations, is the opinion expressed in a report on the farm economics section of research work at Canterbury Agricultural College. ">For three years, research work has been proceeding into the methods of applying the latest scientific advances in agriculture to actual farm practice Several Canterbury farms have been directed entirely by Mr. A. H. Flay, and following an initial report and valuation, detailed records have been kept of all operation, both of cultivation and marketing. At. the end of the year, the returns are reviewed in the balancesheet, and profit and lose statements prepared. "The result," states the report, "gives a good idea of the economic value of scientific methods of farming. On the farm which has been dealt with for the longest period under this system, the biiffnet has been balanced during the past s two years, despite the fall in prices, interest charges have been met in full, the earning capacity of the farm increased, while the sheep-carrying capacity has been advanced from 160 ewes to "some 540 ewes, contemporaneously with an increase in the area on the farm devoted to crops."

In addition to the farms under complete control, there are 00 to 70 others who are following the guidance resultin" from farm management investigations, the latest scientific being put into practice along economic lines.

But the farm economists do not overlook the hard 'facts of the present situation. They indicate their recognition of it in the following terms:—-"lnvesti-gations of actual farming conditions at the present time in Canterbury indicate that farmers working largely on borrowed capital, after having reduced all other costs to a minimum, are faced with interest charges totalling some 75 per cent of all costs. It is difficult a*, the present time to see any alleviation, except through some reduction of capitalisation and interest rates, or through a rise in the general price level." Practical Pointers. At Canterbury College, careful experimental work upon the different systems of winter and early spring feeding of breeding ewes was continued, and indicated that lambing percentages, average weight of wool per ewe, and weights

of lambs and ewes are in large measure affected by defective winter feeding, when too much reliance is placed on grass, and too little use made of oatsheaf chaff and meat-meal. Ewes tin i and poorly fed yielded a gross profit of 7/6, compared with 11/2 from tho3e which had been well fed consistently during ,the winter and spring months. It was also found that the rate of thrift of lambs was in proportion to their weight at birth, another fact pointing if the importance of adequate winter feeding.

Trials into the feed value of skim milk showed that with veal selling at 2d per lb, skim milk yielded a return of 0.45 d per gallon, ranging up to I.Bd when veal reached od per lb. It gave a slightly higher return than when skim milk was fed to pigs, for when pork was 4d, skim milk was worth 0.03 d p-?r gallon, and 1.29 d with pork at 7d per lb.