Against Cutting Up

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30971, 29 January 1966, Page 9

Against Cutting Up

He would not be in agreement with the cutting up of high country properties in the near future, Mr D. G. Reynolds, farm advisory officer of the Department of Agriculture at Fairlie, told a questioner during a field day held by the Upper Mackenzie branch of Federated Farmers on properties on the Haldon road in the Mackenzie last week. Runholders, he said, had to face wide variations in season and climate and they therefore had to have some margin to balance one season against another. The questioner had asked whether the main impediment to development of the high country was that too few farmers were occupying too much land, and whether if it was a matter of economic

necessity the rate of development would be accelerated. Mr Reynolds said that the ability to develop this country was related to the ability to breed stock. It was possible to topdress hill country and develop blocks, but there could be no animals to put on it. These properties were far better being over-large than on the marginal basis that the questioner suggested. Mr C. C. S. Parker, of Mount Dalgety Station, said that these properties had been marginal when wool had been 13d to 15d per lb. It had only been in the last 10 to 15 years that there had been the golden age as far as the high country was concerned. It had allowed farmers to get their fences and buildings in order and to make a start with development Mr lan Wardell commented that in 1900 the Mackenzie Country had carried twice the stock it was carrying in 1964 “we are forging ahead in the direction of our grandfathers.”