A FARMER'S PROBLEM

Evening Post, Volume XC, Issue 85, 8 October 1915, Page 8

A FARMER'S PROBLEM

Many farmers in the Dominion are in the difficult position of having to decide which of two patriotic counsels they will follow. On the one hand, they have been urged to grow all the crops they can, and having set about doing this to the best of their power, 'they are confronted with the necessity for employing able-bodied men to assist them in their work. Cropping calls for more labour at most seasons 'than pastoral farmrng, but cropping is desired. Many of the sons of -farmers have gone to the front, also many of the labourers who had been in their employ for years. If extensive crops a,re now to be garnered, the positions of --these men must be filled by others, in many cases as able-bodied, but not so patriotic. To some farmers it is not a pleasant task to engage or employ such men. The Labour Department, wherever possible, has been sending to the jobs vacated by recruits applicants who for family reasons or owing to age or slight physical' defect could not serve at the front, but the supply of such labour is not sufficient. Competent ploughmen were never too numerous in the Dominion, and now, when their services are most in demand, they are scarcer than ever. In Great Britain, it is stated, they have been placed among the classes of labour from which it is undesirable to take-, recruits, and it is suggested that before long some similar step may be rendered necessary in New j Zealand.