FARM LANDS OF ENGLAND

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 74, 20 December 1929, Page 9

FARM LANDS OF ENGLAND

Sir,—My attention has been drawn to the article appearing in last Monday’s issue of “The Dominion” on “The Waste Lands of England,” written by your “Special Service” correspondent in London. I am sorry to have to say it, but to my mind it is articles such as these which give the younger generation of this Dominion very wrong ideas of the Mother Country; in fact, leading them to believe that there are hardly any farms, either dairy or sheep, in the Old Country. I mention this because of an incident which took place some time ago at a big hotel in Napier. I was sitting in the lounge and the only other occupant at the time was a young man about 22 or 23 years of age. , We were strangers, but soon got into conversation, which drifted from one thing to another, till one of us happened to touch on "daylight saving.” He remarked that the farmers in this country did not want "daylight saving,” and that he personally did not think it was any good, to which I replied that strangely enough the _ farmers at Home were against the “daylight saving” when it was first brought in, but that they were almost the first to favour it the following year, appreciating that it gave them a little time in the evenings, after “tucking the cows to bed,” to go for a short spin in the car, or watch the younger folks at their games. When I made the above remark, the young man turned to me and’ remarked with a very cynical expression, “But surely there are not so very many farmers in the Old Country?” You can imagine the shock I received, for I saw he was quite in earnest. I said to him, “My dear sir, I will, in reply to your question, make a statement and then ask you a' simple question, which I hope you will be good enough to answer.” He assented, so I proceeded: “From statistics we know that the population of London alone is about six times the population of. the whole of this Dominion, counting every man, woman and child.” To which he answered -“Yes.” I then said : “Now, here is my simple question: Tell me, where do they get all the milk every day to supply' all that multitude?” He did not answer, so I went on to tell him that there were also towns, such as Manchester, Edinburgh, Newcastle, Birmingham and dozens of other cities, in which the population runs into six and seven figures and that they all have milk enough and' to spare,' with no shortage, without taking into account the individual homes in the suburbs and country, and further, that one could get a large glass of good milk for 2d. a glass at any of hundreds of establishements in the city of London and other cities and towns where' the multitudes feed. Needless to say, the young man was quite astounded, remarking, “I have never had it put to me like that before.” I quite agree with your correspondent that there are large numbers, of farmers who cannot run an electric milking or shearing machine,-but that is not their fault, but their misfortune, for electric power was not available on the farms in the Old Country like it is in this country; but electrification schemes are now in hand. Here you hate the different electric power boards running out their overhead lines like so many tentacles, supplying farms with electricity at a very cheap rate, but at Home, till just a few years ago, cross-country overhead electric power lines were riot allowed for more, reasons than one, and the cost of running a cable underground is prohibitive, so that the farmer had to carry out his milking by hand and daily meet the tremendous demand, which is all the more creditable. I lived for some years in two or three farming areas and frequently heard farmers wish they had electric power on the, farin. ■ ’ Some of the farmers had a small oil engine driving an electric dynamo which charged a whole bank, of electric accumulators. These, as any engineer knows, require a certain amount of at-' tention to keep them in good order, and one of the hands was detailed to look after the plant at intervals during the day. The power generated by the oil engine was used for lighting the house and pumping water up to a reservoir which supplied water for domestic purposes, also drinking water for the cattle and washing out the cow-sheds, stables, etc. Plant was also installed in a building nearby for scouring out the large milk drums with steam at high pressure, and these were subject to very strict •Government inspection. It is absolutely ridiculous to say in reference to . farming that there are “too many gentlemen riding about in leggings, who can't milk a cow, prune a tree, etc. All the farmers I know are quite skilled in the art of milking by hand or pruning, and also shearing by hand, and there are millions more sheep in Great Britain than there are in the whole of this Dominion. Possibly your correspondent refers to the “landlord” of- the whole estate, people like Lord Derby. Lord Ampthill, the Duke of Bedford and others who own thousands of acres on which are situated several farms and even villages; one could hardly call them farmers; they are landlords, and the farmer rents the farm for a certain number of years from these landlords! very much in the _ same way as one would rent a small section of land on which to grow vegetables, from a person Who did not know the first thing about gardening. I have travelled the whole length and breadth of the South Island several times, and also the North Island, but not quite so often, making' notes as I went along, and I have related the incident mentioned at the beginning of this letter to several friends by way of interest, and also on occasions when someone, trying to make a joke at the expense of farmers in England, has scoffingly said. “Farming is quite a joke in the Old Country,” and it has always had the desired effect of giving the listeners something to think about. In fact, several of the scoffers as well as others suggested my writing a short article to the Press \on this subject, so as to set the younger generation wise to the fact that the population of Great Britain, which is about fifty millions, has, and continues to have, sufficient milk for their daily wants without the aid of electrically-driven milking machines, and. further, that millions more sheep in Great Britain than there are in this Dominion are still shorn of their coats, annually, by hand. While not trying for one. moment to belittle the export trade of this Dominion, one must always try to keep in mind that close on fifty millions of people require some feeding and that there are still a great number of farms and extensive orchards in England: and further, there are millions upon millions of people who have never tasted a New Zealand apple or frozen meat. , , „ About the question of "waste land,” one does not need to look very far to see the vast acres of fertile agricultural land lying idle in this Dominion, but I think I have written quite sufficient. In conclusion. quite sure that the farmers in England will take every advantage of the electrification scheme which is now being carried out at Home. - 1 am ’ etC ” D.N.K. Wellington, December 12.