THE WEEK

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27094, 18 July 1953, Page 5

THE WEEK

EWE MUTTON The outcome of the argument between the British housewives, led or perhaps backed by the British butchers, seems so far to have been a victory for the housewives, but many New Zealand sheepfarmers must have felt a slight chill in the air after the forthright condemnation of ewe mutton. Many must have had their minds switched back to the day? just before the war, when something like 800,000 ewe carcases were held in New Zealand refrigerated stores waiting for buyers, who appeared to be of much the same mind as the housewives of Britain appear to be in today. The housewives and the butchers condemned ewe mutton without making any distinction between the various grades of ewe mutton, and without, further, making any distinction among the ewe mutton that goes to Britain from the various supplying countries. Ewe mutton can be very good indeed, tut not many New Zealand farmers would willingly eat some of the ewe mutton that they have been shipping overseas for years. In fact, New Zealand ewe mutton, like most of the meat from the Dominion, has a high reputation with British purchasers. It has usually been Australian ewe mutton that has come in. for the severest criticism. Long storage, and perhaps handling that was not quite as careful as it might have been, would not have improved a relatively unattractive article, and undoubtedly at English retail prices, a lot of it would be very bad buying. The important point is that it appears to be inevitable that when free marketing returns, ewe mutton will be relatively harder to sell in relation to. lamb and wether mutton than it was before the war, and that prices relative to lamb will be lower for the producer here. This will mean an adjustment in the values of cast for age ewes, which may be serious for the man whose country will produce only wool and cast sheep. It is unlikely that ewe mutton will become unsaleable for many years yet. If it is impossible to sell it as meat, it could probably be sold, as Australian has recently been, to manufacturers of soup and similar products, but in that case the price would be lower than farmers have become accustomed to in recent times. TWO COMPLAINTS A Canterbury farmer who has for some months employed a Dutch immigrant, says he has two complaints to make about the man. The first is that he is uneasy, because he still feels that the man is too good to be true; and the second is that the Dutchman keeps him so well into the collar thar. he is tired. These are complaints from which most farmers would be very glad to suffer. The employment of the Dutchman, who is just over 21 years old, has been an unqualified success. He is a great hand with cows, understands them, and has a working knowledge of the common complaints of dairy cows, and great skill in treating them. He was particularly useful during haymaking, an operation at which Dutch farmers are specially good. He uses his head in his work. The Dutchman has parents, and five brothers and sisters in Holland, all of whom want to come to New Zealand. They want to come as a family, but so far the immigration authorities here have refused to admit the two old people, though housing has been guaranteed for the family. DEMONSTRATION OF MACHINERY A good many farmers were among the 400 people who attended the demonstration of machinery at Lincoln College on Thursday. It was primarily a show of horticultural machinery, but several of the farm tractor and implement concerns took the opportunity of demonstrating their products. There was little new, except a simple and highly efficient mechanism for taking the cut off offset discs while moving the implement around headlands or across ground where no work was required. The farm and orchard spraying equipment was mostly of familiar pattern, except for an oscillating spray line of new design well suited to the requirements of market gardeners. A great diversity of sizes of small garden tractors from 1J up to about 10 horsepower was displayed, all of it working. The basic implement was usually a rotary hoe, but many of the models, even the smallest, were fitted with toolbars to which a big selection of cultivation and other implements could be attached. Great interest was shown by the crowd in the production version of the ditch cleaner developed by the college engineering staff and patented by the college. The day was fine, and the usual excellent arrangements had been made for the display. COST OF FOOT-AND-MOUTH An estimate that the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in Western Europe last year cost £313,000,000 is made by a writer in the current issue of “Agriculture,” the journal of the British Ministry of Agriculture. This estimate, the writer says, does not take into account the loss of production of meat, and in Europe, the loss of acreage under cereals because of the incapacity of draught cattle, which are largely used still in some countries. The outbreak started in the western zones of Germany. After a fairly normal year in 1950, when there were 615 recorded outbreaks, the disease flared up in the middle of the summer of 1951, and for the 12 months to the end of December, 1951. gave rise to the alarming total of 154,478 outbreaks. It spread rapidly across the international borders into Denmark, Holland, Belgium and France, and later, to Britain. By January, 1952, most of the Continental countries had passed the peak, but the disease kept increasing in France for several months, and in all, 111,637 outbreaks were recorded there up to the end of July. Britain, which takes exceedingly strict precautions, recorded 583 outbreaks from November. 1951, until the end of 1952. It was considered to be a bad epidemic, and cost £2,736,000 in compensation for livestock destroyed. The writer remarks that the cost to Britain might appear high, but the average cost for 30 years was about £360,000 a year, and at present Britain was free of the disease, whereas with the exception of Sweden and Switzerland, both of which have a modified slaughter policy, al] Continental countries are still in the grip of the disease. SHEARING COSTS The Australian Woolgrowers’ Council has drawn the attention of the Commonwealth Department of Commerce and Agriculture to a report from America to the effect that it costs only Is Id to shear a sheep in Australia as against 3s 7d in the United States. These figures were said to have been quoted by the United States Woolgrowers’ Association in support of their case for a higher tariff on wool. The council said that the Australian figure of Is Id was inaccurate as the minimum award route for a shearer alone was Is 5d a sheep. Another factor which had to be taken into consideration was whether the American figure dealt with the cost of the shearer alone or whether it covered the complete shearing operation. In Australia the average shearing contractor cha/ges from 3s 3d to 4s a sheep to cover shearers, shed hands, woolclasser, wool pressers, and the contractor’s return.