BARN WHISPERS.

Clutha Leader, Volume XX, Issue 1039, 22 June 1894, Page 3

BARN WHISPERS.

(By Edward Chnrles.)

The present is an age of progress but the most reluctant to fall in with the spirit of the times are the farmers. Not mova than 10 per cent, if s6 much, in any agricultural locality in this colony are of the progressive kind. Tn most industrial occupations keen competition sharpens the wits, and creates a desire to excel, this desire having for its object an issue of benefit and profit to the competitor. But, as a rule, Hodge plods along in accordance with his old, time notions, and ignores everything of the modern school. He hasf§no time to waste on new ideas, nor does he read. Three or four years ago his paddocks yielded 25 to 80 bushels per acre, now they give 6 to 8 bushels. But it will not grow anything else ; only wheat ; besides, it is the easiest managed crop, so he crops away till 'it will hardly yield a crop to the acre, and then* he gives it up to thistles, burrs, and other weeds. ' Rotation of crops be blowed !' he soliloquizes. c What nonsense to talk of land resting, when it is used 1o produce a crop, I have been farming all my life and know better.' His stock don'fc want shelter. In their natural state a tree is all they get, so it must be enough, and the paddock is well stocked with trees. In summer, when grass is burnt off, they have- the stubble paddocks after the crops are off, and that keeps them going. He feels, from his diminished

income, that he is retrograding, but don't understand altogether why, because he works as hard as ever, and lives just as economically. The time is coming, however, when Hodge will have to alter his methods, or, as the Yankpe puts it, 'go under.' He must be a reader, conversant with the working of his industry in other countries ; a business man, and up to the fluctuations of prices in other markets as well as his own, and know something about the question of supply and demand. He must be an experimentalist, so that he will know exactly what will pay him for labor expended. And, lastly, he must be a systematic manager, fully versed in the expenditure And incomo of Ins business.- — Australian Agriculturist. v