DIVERSIFIED U.S. FARMING

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23919, 10 April 1943, Page 3

DIVERSIFIED U.S. FARMING

KEY TO POSTWAR STABILITY SEEN FUTURE DOMINION POLICY RAISED The war-time diversification of farming in the United States, as outlined in an article published in "Time,” and a suggestion that this might be a better key to post-war stability than “any programme out of Washington” or than habit-forming reliance on wheat-corn-cotton, are commented upon by the secretary of the New Zea. land Manufacturers’ Federation (Mr D. I. Macdonald) in a letter to the Canterbury association. Mr Macdonald states that the federation has several times in presidential and policy statements mentioned this development as a post-war need in New Zealand. The article from “Time” of January states; — ' “Farming is a business that changes slowly, except in war time. This year’s seed catalogues, agriculture college bulletins, and reports of new research tell an exciting story of improved plants that promise higher yields of foodstuffs and fodder, of forgotten crops returning to favour, of drug plants formerly imported now vital crops in the United States. "There are new kinds of soyabeans with a higher oil content than the old. An improved alfalfa resists wilt. Two brand new types of red clover can yield a ton more of hay an acre than the old, once popular ordinary variety that fell into disfavour because it was .not winter hardy. A Canadian wild rye, new as a forage crop, promises heavier yields than the common meadow grass. Flax, a minor crop until 1942. is getting a tremendous boost from the introduction of machines to handle it. Hybrid corn, no newcomer in the middle west, is being improved for use all through the United States; this year it has extra importance because it has all but crowded out open pollinated corn in the corn belt.

“There are odd plants unimportant in acreage but vital in the war: quickgrowing Russian dandelions for rubber, cat-tails and milkweed to be used as filler in life-preservers, henbane used as a sedative.

“Department of Agriculture plans call for 500 acres of belladonna to be planted this year in east central states, notably Pennsylvania. In 1939 scarcely a handful of belladonna seed could be found in the United States, but that was carefully grown and made possible a good 1942 crop whose product, used in surgical therapy, was above United States pharmacopoeia standards. "Most sizeable of the new crops is hemp, which will be grown this year on 350,000 acres in the mid-west. To prepare for the new crop some 35,000 acres of hemp were grown in Kentucky and harvested for seed last year. For processing the hemp into badly-needed ships’ ropes, the Department of Agriculture is financing the construction of 71 mid-west factories. Hemp was a big United States staple even before the revolution, and was used for homespun garments, twine, sacking, rigging, cables, hangmen’s nooses. But foreign competition half a century ago killed United States hemp production. Now the agriculture secretary, Claude Wickard, had listed it as a vital war crop. “About such developments are United’ States farmers reading these winter nights. And with reason. Here might well be the shape of things to come, a key to post-war stability better than any programme out of Washington, far better than habit-forming reliance on wheat-corn-cotton.”