Few turn out for farm visits

Press, 28 November 1977, Page 2

Few turn out for farm visits

Not as many city people as had been hoped responded to the invitation of the Young Farmers' Cub movement in the Christchurch and North Canterbury districts to visit farms yesterday. The weather could not haye been better for the occasion and it had been given extensive publicity — out only about 400 to 450, peeple out of the hundreds; of'thousands in Christchurch; turned up at the marshalling points at Darfield, Oxford, an(l Greenpark to be directed to farms in those districts. Jhe aim of the Young Farmers’ Club was to attempt to promote better understanding of fanning and farmers among city people. The regional chairman of the movement (Mr B. Duncan) said that the exercise would have to be re-eval-uated. It might be better to wcjrk with schools, particularly those which did not have a very close relationship the country. Another suggestion was that a better response might be obtained through service or community clubs. Some of the city people; who took advantage of the. Young Farmers’ invitation; said it had been well worth' while. One of those who; went with the first group to leave the Darfield Domain to the 269 ha mixed cropping! and stock farm of Mr R. J. Stfcele, 11km from Darfield, was an Englishman who with his wife came to New Zealand from London less than two years ago. He said he had never been so close to sheep before, and found the day' “an eye-opener” as to how other people lived. As well as being an able farmer, Mr Steele proved to

be an able communicator. Under the shade of a magnificent oak tree he told the group that visited his farm that while he and his family had been there for slightly less than eight years, their predecessors had been there for 82 years. The property, “Oakside,” was once part of the Racecourse Hill property that changed hands recently. The original settler on “Oakside” came from Northern Ireland first to Australia. He then came on to New Zealand where he worked as a teamster at Racecourse Hill, the owner of which helped him to settle on 80ha, which he subsequently enlarged when Racecourse Hill was broken

up early this century. Mr Steele caught the imagination of his visitors when he held up a thin tube, known as a straw, to indicate this was where a big tan-and-white bull in a pen! in the yard had come from. Such a tube had held the semen from the Simmental sire of his bull, a sire which had never left Europe. The I use of the semen with a j Beef Shorthorn cow had produced his bull, which he ; estimated would now weigh 'about 1500 kg, or a tonne | and a half, at six years of age. The doors of an implement shed were thrown open to show a big bulk header harvester, now nine years old. It cost $BOOO when it was bought. Today, it would cost between $38,000 and $90,000 to replace, depending on the size of machine wanted. While it was questionable whether a fanner should own such a costly machine, used for only about a month a year, or should use a contractor, Mr Steele said that in a season like the previous one when there had been a lot of broken weather, everyone would have wanted the contractor ;on the same day when the ; weather took up — which I was clearly not possible. I The visitors were left in no doubt that a cropping i farm like this, growing j wheat, oats, barley, peas, and potatoes and harvesting ryegrass must have an extensive and very expensive range ot equipment. Later the party was introduced to a big new tractor complete with air-condi-tioned cab and radio “but not colour television.” It has replaced a machine that had worked for about 7000 hours.

The sight of three calves drinking from cows was a signal that it was time for lunch, but before that Mr Steele used his dog to round up a mob of ewes and lambs belonging to a neighbour, sheen notable for their black [and coloured fleeces much in demand these days from persons interested in the crafts of spinning and weaving. The dog was not up to the standard of those seen in the ring at the Canterbury Show, said Mr Steele, but would be worth $4OO to renlace today, compared with $4O a few years ago. In a haze of dust the Steeles and Young Farmer assistants drafted off lambs

I tor Mr Steele to inject against pulpy kidney, malignant oedema, and blackleg. This, he likened to a mother taking her baby to the doctor. Inside the shearing shed, Mr M. Steele, who has been home on the farm for a year now after spending a year at the Telford farm-training institute near Balclutha, shore two sheep for a very impressed audience — and to the accompaniment of hoots from small children, including Steven Pitts, aged 18 months, who exclaimed that the sheep were getting a haircut. Mr Steele invited the city visitors to feel the grease in the wool, which he said was the base for lipsticks and face-creams that women used. Out in a lucerne paddock, the party finally watched the last windrow or two being baled. Mr Steele explained that he and his son had baled this material after midnight on Saturday, because had they tried to bale it in the heat earlier they would have lost a lot of the leaf. Only that morning, he said, they had sent to the freezing works some of the iambs recently been drafted for killing. With the dry weather and feed not growing as fast as they would like, fanners wanted to get as many lambs away to the works as possible. Supporting Mr Steele and his son were Mrs Steele and another son, Mr A. Steele, who is an apprentice mechanic in a garage at Sheffield, gaining the mechanical expertise so valuable on a highly mechanised farm, before he eventually returns home.