How Science Increases Our Farming Efficiency

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 65, 9 December 1938, Page 15 (Supplement)

How Science Increases Our Farming Efficiency

Research Institutes Solve Farmers 5 Difficulties

A QUAINT tradition lingers in the world’s cities, a mediaeval legend that has outlasted the circumstances that gave it birth, that the countryman must be perforce unprogressive, unintelligent. ill-informed, a bucolic oaf, a stick-in-the-mud yoke) with straw sticking in his hair. It is a figment fostered by careless writers of fiction. We of New Zealand know how false it is, for in this Dominion our farmers have shown the world how modern knowledge and scientific research are able to increase production and efficiency. The modern farmer keeps close touch with every latest step along the path of progress. Here in New Zealand farmer and scientist are allied in the endeavour to wring from the soil the very last, utmost ounce of produce or nutritive utility. From overseas come yearly leading agricultural experts of other lands, to learn of little New Zealand the secrets of pasture management, of successful cropping, of eradicating insect pests, of placing on the world market the best meat and butter, cheese, honey and fruit ever the housewife bought, or her husband paid for. or her children ate. As an example of what has been achieved in this Dominion by scientific farming, a farm in the Waikato, consisting of 150 acres of definitely second-class land, carried in one season 1000 breeding ewes: they raised more than 1000 lambs, which were sold fat practically straightway upon weaning, and, in addition, 40 store cattle were grazed upon the farm. All this was done on simple pasturage—grass and hay grown upon the farm at small expense. Again, dairymen of the North Island, feeding their cattle entirely on hay, grass and ensilage from their own farms, have produced as much as 3501 b. of butterfat per acre, an achievement no other countrv can equal. Increased Production

Over ten years, off an acreage which has not materially altered, the numbers of lambs killed annually for home consumption and for export have risen from 5,175,000 to over 9,000,000. In the same period pigslaughterings have increased from 400,000 to over 1,000,000 a year. Butterfat production has been increased from 234,000,0001 b. to over 425,000,0001 b. yearly. This vast increase in production, amounting to approximately 100 per cent, more, is attributed entirely to improved efficiency through the application of modern methods and advanced scientific knowledge to practical farming. Two Government departments in particular strive to increase farming efficiency in the Dominion. They realize that more intensive rather than more extensive farming is needed to increase New Zealand’s exports, and her consequent prosperity. They are the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research and the Department of Agriculture. The activities of the Department of Agriculture are manifold, but are mainly concerned with the education of the farmer. The department is a central mart for ideas and information, which it disseminates throughout the country. By frequent bulletins, and by the. medium of its own bright and informative magazine, ‘'The N.Z. Journal of Agriculture,” they awaken the farmer to appreciation of scientific methods, and a working knowledge of their application to his own particular circumstances.

Farmers arc assisted by visits of .departmental experts, who chat over their problems and advise them on their difficulties. Their methods are constructively analysed, their special circumstances studied. Numbers of progressive landowners throughout the country co-operate with the department, in carrying out field experiments.

Free of all charge, the department examines and advises upon soil and seed, stock, produce, property, and carries out veterinary and plant-disease preventive operations. It registers and inspects slaughter-houses, dairies and dairy factories, apiaries and orchards to see that they comply with the requirements of public health and purity of produce. Stock is inspected to check disease; close supervision is imposed on importations from overseas. Instruction is given in poultryfarming, bee-keeping, swine husbandry, sheep and dairy-farming, wool-growing, sorting and classing. The livestock division, which is responsible for most

of these activities, also maintains its own veterinary research laboratory at Wallaceville for the study of stock ailments.

Besides instructing farmers on herd management, pasture cultivation, improvement of butterfat production, making, grading and testing butter and cheese, and scientific herd-testing, the dairy division carries out a great deal of administrative work. It grades and inspects dairy produce for shipment. It inspects farms and factories. It tests milk samples. It carries out experimental herd-testing in co-operation with progressive farmers. Pasture and cropping is under the supervision of the Fields Division. It advises farmers on the crops to sow and the manure to use on sterile or specialized soils, on the betterment of fodder or produce crops, cereals or roots, and the treatment, of whatever blights or parasites assail them. It carries out experimental planting, grading of hemp, grain and seed, seed certification, and the administration of various experimental areas.

Further practical scientific work is done by the chemistry section, concerned with the analysis of soils, fertilizer, water, limestone, and so forth, and the horticultural division, which instructs orchard managers and fruit-growers, tobacco-gardeners, bee-masters, inspects export fruits, and grades export honey. The department rims a training farm and experimental station at Hamilton, and a vinicultural and wine-making establishment at. Te Kauwhata. Research Department

Every bit as important to the farmer, but more academic, is the work of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. It controls the Daily Research Institute, Plant Research Institute, Wheat Research Institute, Soil Survey Division, and a number of lesser research activities of more individual nature. Massey and Lincoln Agricultural Colleges, respectively at Palmerston North and Christchurch, co-operate closely in the work of the department, which in all cases is pure research, and its practical application. Massey College, headquarters of the Dairy Research Institute, maintains a fine herd of dairy cattle.

and an experimental dairy factory. Butterfat production and the processing of dairy produce are studied there under the closest and most favourable conditions. The principal subjects of research are the manufacture, storage and transport of cheese and butter, and in this, valuable practical progress is being made. Cheese factories are supplied by the institute with pedigree breeds of cheddar starter bacilli.

The work of the plant research bureau is in the. realm of plant diseases, entomology, grassland and crop research. The crops division experiments in the introduction of new types of plant, breeding and improvement of existing crops, and their greater adaptation to the purposes they arc grown to serve, and the production of pure and reliable seed which will sprout true to type. 'Pasture and herbage culture is the business of the grasslands di vision, which studies particularly the increase of carrying power of pasture, and the influences of various types of grasses on the quality of dairy produce. The entomological and plant diseases sections study control of diamondback moth, weevil, white butterfly, “the fly,” blights and fungoid diseases of fruit and plants.'

The Wheat Research Institute is concerned mainly with the treatment and processing of produce after it has left the growers' hands. At the same rime, study is made of the problems and methods of the wheat-grower. The soil survey is concerned largely with land utilisation, suitability of various types of countrv to the purposes for which it is used, and possibilities of exploiting barren or waste areas, or of applying land already in use more profitably to other branches of production. Valuable work has been done in ascertaining the causes of various stock diseases endemic in the soil. By soil examination the survey has often been able to suggest fertilization or treatment to counteract an apparent sterility, or shortcoming. Control of Insects

Most interesting, perhaps, of the country's research stations is the Cawthron Institute, at Nelson. Here important biological control of insect pests and noxious weeds is being studied. When plant or insect threatens to rob the farmlands of their value, or to devour crops, the scientists of the Cawthron Institute enlist the services of battalions of other insects amicable to man. Thus insect armies have been turned loose on the wild blackberry, gorse, piripiri, ragwort, weeds which neither fire nor plough were able to eradicate. Parasitic enemies have been released upon the grass-grub, aphis, pear-nudge, mealy-bug, leaf-roller; red spider, golden oak scale, blowfly and horntail borer. Of all the scientific activities of the research stations this combating of insect with insect is. to the layman, the most fascinating and clever. In addition, the Cawthron carries out fruit and soil research, and investigation of pasture deficiencies. The New Zealand farmer today leads the world in intensive high-standard production and economic farm management. Living in a world of change and progress, he keeps pace with the times, thanks to the scientist and the Government facilities which have made possible so much and so valuable research.