FARMING AT HOME AND IN NEW ZEALAND.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 20, 18 October 1907, Page 2

FARMING AT HOME AND IN NEW ZEALAND.

INTERESTING COMPARISONS. (moil OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) Cliristchuroh, October 15. A young English farmer, Mr. E. F. Andrews, nephew of a member of tho Christchurch firm of implement makers (Andrews and Bcaven), has been travelling round New Zealand for the best part of a year, and has been giving a "Press" man his impressions of farming in the Dominion. Regarding the stock lie has scon, the sheep, he says,, are well up to the standard, and'ho was much takon with tho draught horses. The harness and saddle horses ftro, however, not up' to those to bo seen in England. He was struck with the inferior quality of the ordinary dairy eattlo throughout the Dominion. He is a strong advocate of tho use of the Lincolnshire and shorthorn for crossing upon ordinary shorthorns to improve their milking qualities. In regard to wheat growing, Mr. Andrews says he has frequently been asked how it is that it costs less to grow wheat on £30 an acre laud in New Zealand than upon land near London, for which only £1 per acre is paid as rent. The yield in each case being, say, forty bushels per acre, the explanation is simple. Before a crop of wheat can bo grown at Home from £2- to £3 per acre has to bo spent in artificial manure, and this is usually applied in tho form of cako and other similar foods'. All the straw has to go back to the land as manure. Labour is cheaper at Home, but on the largo farms the method of farming is much the same as in New Zealand. Mr. Andrews has noticed that hero the farm labourers were more unsettled than at Homo, and do not stay long in their' billets. Ho believes this is largely due to tho want of bettor accommodation on the farms. There was no encouragement given to farm labourers to marry. At Homo tho farm labourers wore much hotter housed, and there was a much larger proportion of married men at work on farms. Mr. Andrews admitted that the New Zealand mutton was very good, but English beef >was far ahead of New Zealand-grown. It was evident, however, that though good mutton could be produced upon pasture, it required artificial feeding to produce the best quality of beef; On the other hand, Mr. T. Macartney, a well-known farmer at Tai Tapu, near Christchurch, has como back from a visit' to his old homo in Ireland with a vory poor opinion of Irish farming. He was struck with the difference* between tho method of carrying on farming now ,and that in'vogue in his youth. Tho whole . country in this respect seemed to have been slipping backwards. Farming was not. carried on •as it once was, and tho peoplo told him that-it was cheaper to buy produce than to grow it. Tho paddocks seemed to ho chiefly in pasture. The farmers say! tljat they cannot compete with tho colonies, and that colonial produce has swamped their markets. "My impressioii," said Air. Macartney, "is that they don't; try to compete with tho colonies, and in fact they seem perfectly contented to lot things take their own course, and make little or no effort to develop the resources of their own holdings." Mr. Macartney visited the country districts of England, l and here the most noticeablo feature was tho backwardness as, compared -with' Now Zealand farming in the use of agricultural machinery. He was amused to see in a paddock two men strenuously at work with a plough. One man was holding tho plough, and the other driving a pair of horses. He could not help thinking of tho New Zealand youth, who thought very littlo of driving horses in a four-furrow plough. It seemed to'him that in the Old Country littlo or no. progress in farming mattors had been made. -