THE WEEK

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25092, 25 January 1947, Page 5

THE WEEK

HIGH COUNTRY SEASON The Canterbury high country has never looked better than it does at present, according to a number of men who have been managing it for a lifetime. The writer spent some days this month in .the Waimakariri area, and the growth everywhere was phenomenal. The spring and early summer have been wet in the high country, as they have everywhere else, and the winter was probably wetter than normal. Such operations as shearing have been badly delayed on .a number of runs; but the country has on it at present the sort of cover that one usually associates with the end of a favourable November rather than the end of January. There are few signs of burning off. and every hillside is green. The vigorous growth has supplied considerably more than adequate grazing. and stock are in wonderful order, and the effect has been almost as good as a year’s spell for big areas of country. The catch is that a number of runs had a poor lambing because of snow, and wool has not come off in the best of condition. REJUVENATED PADDOCK A remarkably vigorous paddock of rvegrass and Montgomery red clover on a South Can terbury farm is a striking demonstration of what can be gained from lime and suner. The paddock is on moderately heavy land, and was sown down six years ago. In its early youth it was a good producer, but during the war it was allowed to go without topdressing, as the owner’s time was fully taken up in one of the services. When he got back to farming last year he found the paddock run down and apparently fit only for ploughing up and reseeding. He decided to put on a ton of lime and a hunefredweight of super, and the paddock at present is a mass of Mont- . gomery clover with a strong growth of ryegrass. A herd of milking cows is finding it very satisfactory feed.

CLOVER SEED FOR BRITAIN

» The harvest of both red and white clover seed in Great Britain during 1946 has been very unsatisfactory. Difficult.. weather led to complete failures in many instances and in the saving of seed of very poor quality in other cases. As a result, the United Kingdom is expected this year to be a buyer of substantial quantities of clover seed from overseas sources. New Zealand has shipped considerable quantities of both red and white clover seed to Great Britain in recent years, and this market should be capable of absorbing any seeds surplus to local requirements harvested in the present season. The Department of Agriculture, Wellington, accordingly advises that an opportunity presents itself for farmers who have suitable areas to harvest as much clover seed as possible this season to meet the expected British requirements.

AUSTRALIAN PLAN FOR STABILISING WHEAT

Some details have been received about the Australian wheat stabilisation proposals behind the bill passed by the Federal Government and awaiting action by State Parliaments. The bill aims to give a reasonable guaranteed minimum price to the grower, irrespective of world supply and demand, and to stabilise the price paid by consumers within Australia. This stable price is Ass 2d a bushel. At present the world price is well above this figure, but against a possible slump .in prices, wheat stabilisation proposes to establish a fund from which growers will receive additional payments to bring their selling price up to the 5s 2d mark.

If the pricq of wheat sold overseas is above 5s 2d, but not above 9s 6d, half of the amount above 5s 2d will be kept from the wheatgrower’s return, and paid into a fund. The whole of any amount more than 9s 6d a bushel will be paid to the grower. If the Australian price were 5s 2d and the overseas price 7s 2d and half of the wheat were exported, for example, growers would receive 5s 2d for what was sold in Australia and 6s 2d for that part of the crop sold overseas. The remaining Is would go into the fund. The bill is designed to operate for last season and four years to come. Provision is made in the bill for a ballot among wheatgrowers on whether they want the scheme. It will not come into force unless 50 per cent, of farmers approve it. SHEARER’S NEAR-RECORD Mr Allan Hayes, a shearer, from Tasmania, recently shore 318 wellgrown Corriedale lambs in eight hours. His one sheep every 100 seconds took him close to the Australian record of Jack Howe at Alice Downs, Queensland, who put through 321 in an eight-hour day. Hayes worked a 37-weeks’ run on the Australian mainland this season, and shore a total of 33,000 sheep.

Australian shearers work a* 44-hour week, with an eight-hour day and four hours on Saturday. They work two shifts, with a half-hour spell in each, from 7.30 a.m. to noon, and from 1 o’clock to 5.30 p.m. Pay is 36s a hundred, with rams counting as two sheep. Another shearer, Mr Mick Fisher, recently shore 315 ewes and lambs in 7 hours 45 minutes at Bunda Bunda, North Queensland. During his run, he used four combs and nine cutters, and but for losing 15 minutes from the normal eight-hour day might have eclipsed Howe’s record. Howe, incidentally, established his record in 1892, using blade sheers. It has been suggested that his record has several tifnes been bettered if allowance is made for present-day sheep being heavier and carrying more wool.

SPRAY IRRIGATION FOR AUSTRALIAN FARM

Producing tomatoes, asparagus, and vegetables for canning, a single farm of 1000 acres will soon be under spray irrigation on the flats of the Murrumbidgee river in Australia. The property was acquired last June, by a packing company, near Gundagai, New South Wales. By next season the company hopes to have 600 acres in asparagus and 200 acres in beans, peas, tomatoes, celery, and white onions. More than half the farm is already fitted with overhead sprays, and before long a series of pipe lines will be capable of watering the farm at a rate equal to four inches of rain in 21 hours. Two electric pumps are able to draw water from the Murrumbidgee river at the rate of 67,000 gallons an hour. Asparagus already under cultivation was grown from seed from Bathurst and from the United States. The ground was worked and fallowed, then fertilised with a special phosphate and potash mixture at the rate of lOcwt to the acre before transplanting. The land had been previously treated with dolomite (calcium and magnesium carbonate). At its nursery by the river, the farm has raised 600,000 tomato plants this year. These will be transplanted by machine at the rate of 40,000 a day. The two canning varieties used are Tatura Dwarf Globe and Pearson. Australian Farm Machinery Output. —ln 10 years the value of agricultural implements made yearly in Australia has risen from &A 1.969 000 to £A6.500.000. Throughout Australia. 146 factories were engaged in this work in 1944-45. They employed 9514 persons. ’*