TOPICS OF THE WEEK

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28370, 31 August 1957, Page 9

TOPICS OF THE WEEK

IN A BIG WAY Things are done in a big way on a 10.000-acre farm at Croobles. near Moree in the north-western [plain of New South Wales. Though thousands of acres of crop are grown, two men do the main work on the property. Mr T. P. Palmer, a plant breeder of the Crop Research Division of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research at Lincoln, visited the farm on a recent visit to Australia. There are 2000 acres each of lucerne, oats and grown on the farm, which carries 900 steers and also 2500 wethers for wool production. Gates are about 25 feet wide so that the colossal implements that work the land for the cropping programme can pass through. A big tracklayer tractor draws two 24-coulter drills. One hundred acres of land are cultivated in a day. All cultivation is done to a depth of no more than four I inches but the Gabo wheat crop [is reckoned to yield about 40 bushels to the acre. All the grain is handled in bulk, trucks carry-; [ing it from the header tank to a< silo. Now there are plans to diver- [ sify still further the cropping [ programme. A start, has been! made to grow peas in this area' and consideration is' also being! given to growing cotton, which' [thrives farther north.

CRUEL GULLS

A Halswell ‘farmer believes with good cause that seagulls can be as cruel as keas. On Tuesday only two or three hours ?fter it had been born, a new lamb was attacked. A quarter of its tongue was pecked away, also the top of an eyelid, and two pieces were pecked out of its head. The lamb was not a weakling and was sitting up when it was attacked.