BACK TO THE LAND

Dominion, Volume 25, Issue 223, 16 June 1932, Page 12

BACK TO THE LAND

Growing Demand for Farms THE NEW DRIFT Dominion Special Service. Hastings, June 15. A statement that many ex-farmers, who left the land in more prosperous times to follow trades and professions in the towns, are now returning to farming occupations, was made by a prominent Hastings land agent in an interview this week. Those men, he said, were of the very best type, both as citizens and as farmers, and they would do a great deal to assist in bringing a return of prosperity to this country. At least locally, added the agent, sec-ond-class land was not finding a market at all, but there .was a ready market for first-class land, especially in small areas. Families to-day were taking up small properties and working them themselves. They could not afford to employ outside labour to any appreciable extent, and there was little of the former practice of buying a farm and engaging someone else to do the work on it. The owners themselves were performing all the necessary labour. Recently his firm had sold a considerable number of what might be called one-man farms —properties of 100 acres carrying 50 cows, or 80 acres with 30 cows, or 200 acres with 30 cows and 150 ewes. In most cases, dairy farms were what was sought after. So far as Hastings and its neighbourhood were concerned, first-class land had not dropped in price to any perceptible degree. During the last three years, the farmer had found that by exercising closer personal supervision, by taking a greater personal share in the work of the farm, and by the use of more scientific farming methods, he had reduced expenses while increasing his production, and thus had fully maintained the value of his property. In many instances local businessmen had owned farms, and had lived in the towns while leaving their sons or managers to run their properties. Many of those men had now given up their homes in town, and by going back to live on their farms they had made a considerable saving in their personal expenses, and indirectly added to the value of their farming properties. There was nothing surer than that the price of second-class land would have to come down, the agent added. It had. always been too dear, and no one could afford to farm it at present costs. The present was not a time for experimenting with land of poor quality. The application of science and business methods to good land was what paid in these days. At present there was a good deal of culling out of farm properties, and whereas at one time a land agent could sell almost anything, now it was an entirely different story. “Agents can find a good market for any number, of one-man farms,” tlie speaker concluded, "but the prices and terms must be reasonable. It does not rest entirely with the price, however, The terms must be reasonably good. People to-day will not consider the short-term mortgage of three or five years at from six to seven per cent. The shortterm mortgage is gone forever. The buyer wants at least from seven to ten years, and we are coming back very fast to the good old five per cent, interest.”