ALGERIA VISITED

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22250, 15 November 1937, Page 10

ALGERIA VISITED

CANTERBURY FARMER RETURNS

"AN AMAZINGLY FERTILE COUNTRY"

After being away from New Zealand for nearly two years, Mr Y. T. Shand, of North Canterbury, .owner of "Island Hills," returned last week in time for the Christchurch show. He travelled with the 1936 New Zealand farmers' touring party, visiting England, France, Germany, Italy, and Austria. Staying behind when the party disbanded, he continued his travels in Scotland and England, and also spent four months of the English winter in Algeria. Mr Sha"nd said in an interview yesterday, that, before making the trip to Algeria, he had only the vaguest idea of France's colonial possessions, and he was amazed at the fertility of the country. There were 1,000,000 French there in a popuulation of 7,000,000. He saw some crops of wheat estimated to produce 20 bushels to the acre, some estimated to go 40 bushels, and a few crops as high as 60 bushels where irrigation was being practised. "Right from Morocco to Carthage there is a strip of land between the sea coast and the desert 80 to 100 miles deep that grows crops I never imagined possible in Africa," he said. On a 900-mile motor-bus tour in a modern streamlined bus, he saw, not only thousands of acres of wheat—Algeria, Mr Shand says, produces many times the New Zealand crop of wheat—but also huge forests of cork-producing trees, many thousands of acres of.at-tractively-planned vineyards, and, nearer the desert, large-scale date production on huge date-palm plantations. One area west of Constantine he saw was, as far back as Roman times, called the granary of Europe. "The French have made an extremely good job of managing the country," he said. "There is an abundant supply of cheap labour and the Arabs seem to work very much better under bosses than they do for themselves. Towns with a population' of more than 5000 all have strong garrisons of soldiers."

Everywhere Mr Shand went he travelled very cheaply. He said the country was very well roaded. "The 900-mile journey cost £2 10s," he said. "Had I liked, I could have travelled cheaper, at the rear of the bus."

Mr Shand said the French-Algerian farmers were the most efficient he had seen on his travels. Up-to-date American farm machinery, similar to that in use in New Zealand, was in use wherever he journeyed and tractors seemed very popular. Mr Shand also travelled by train out 150 miles into the desert to Tougourt, where several big date plantations are situated. "Dates require both heat and water." he said. "There is plenty of heat in the Sahara and French engineers have in this outpost done a great deal towards solving the water problem. There were 3,000.000 date palms in one' plantation and each palm brings in from £1 10s to £lO a year."