FARMING PROBLEMS

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 144, 19 June 1924, Page 9

FARMING PROBLEMS

CASE OF HIGH-PRICED LAND.

The Winter Show at Palmerston North is a great meeting place for people connected with the land. Here once a year forefather farmers', big and little, to* discuss :;rankly some of tlie problems they, are ff.ced with under moauiu conditions. Brom these casual meetings one gathers, a good deal of useful iiifor- | mation as to' the ideas of the farmer on ] the subject of. his daily calling. What follows conveys a general' impression of the present-day position. First of all, it is clear that unless the worst effects prophesied from the lifting of the moratorium eventuate and a slump follows, there is no likelihood of high-priced land, such as that, for instance,..in the vicinity .of Palmerston North—Kairanga, Xoparie, and Glen Oroua—dropping to pre-war.. figures., The ruling price for the best land is placed somewhere about £80 to £85' an acre, and provided that butter and cheese continue to fetch on the Home market much what they bring to-day, there is'little, prospect of a decline in" land values. Assuming this to be true, one next asks how is a purchaser of such land to make a do of it. The first answer, is that much depends on finance, the conditions on which the purchaser secures the money to ;go on the land. In the vast majority of cases this involves a mortgage, and the prevailing shortness of the termlive years—is the source of considerable complaint among farmers. They • consider that the period should be raised to at lease seven years, really the minimum time, in which a new settler on land bought at high prices can be expected to make good. If, of course, the money can be, got at a cheaper.rate than the ruling 6 per cent., so much the better. In any case the conditions are suffi. ciently arduous in the way of finance these, days to stop the speculation andtrafficking in land that was common in the time of the boom a few years ago. Starting on borrowed money the farmer must get busy, if he wants to make' good. There is no room for the easygoing slovenly type of farmer on £85 an acre land. The improvement of the land should bo the first consideration and the improvement of the herd the next— if, indeed, they do not go hand in hand. At any rate one is the complement of the other. A pure-bred, high-grade herd cannot show its maximum results unless the cows are well fed. To feed them well and get the maximum production hi order to pay the interest and principal of the mortgage and have a bit over calls for the growing of the maximum amount of food for the stock. It is not sufficient even on the Kairahga's fat lands to trust to grass alone in the winter. The feed at this season may look luxuriant, but it has not much' body in it. The idea is, therefore, to grow special food crops for.late autumn,. < winter, and early spring feeding. The '. figures' suggested for a- 50-acre farm were about four acres of lucerne, three acres of mangolds, with an acre or two of maize and turnips for a dry season. ' ' : IMPORTANCE OF DRAINAGE. To get the best results the question of drainage is ,of supreme importance, as most of the low-lying rich lands are more or less wet ..in "the winter, as are the' heavy clay lands Higher up; Good authorities consider that the production of the heavier lands could be raised 50 per cent, by drainage, while even the better class land could be very consider-' ably improved in this way. With adequate feeding during the winter the production of butter-fat, it is beliaved, could be vastly increased, as in numerous cases cows take about a couple of months of the milking season to recover from the effects of semi-starvation during the winter. This, of course, is an old story, but, although things are much better than they were in the early days of dairying, much still remains to be done before the" system of farming can be deemed thoroughly satisfactory. The importance of tree planting - for shelter belts is now being realised very rapidly by farmers in the Manawatu, and the demand on-the nurseries is increasing. It is considered essential for the satisfactory calving of cows that they should have shelter and, if possible, they should be in dry, warm soil. As the calving time is usually a season of high winds and boisterous weather, with cold showers, the necessity for the most comfortable surroundings for the cow is obvious. So also is the drain of nourishment from the soil by the elements contained in the milk supplied by the cow and practically all sent off- the farm. There must be some compensation somewhere or the land -will gradually become ■ impoverished.. Top-dressing with various manures is the recognised remedy—a remedy which will have' to be applied almost universally soon. Further on high-priced land, the question of the passenger cow is urgent, and testing must be applied rigorously to de-' termine which are the producers and which are the wasters. And rigorous culling should follow. This has already been done generally in;, Denmark, and New Zealand has to make up a good deal of leeway in that respect. COMPETITION BOGEY. It will thus be seen that the farmer in the Manawatu has a good deal' to occupy his mind, quito apart from the question of markets,1 AVill New Zealand butter and cheese continue, to hold their own,' or will outside competition from Siberia and other quarters undercut them in the Home market? This bogey of outside competition has. been flourished before tho New Zealand dairy farmer fur years, and still prices remain good. It is really a question of quality.. "Danish butter and Canadian cheese still top tho market, because of quality, and it is a fact that quality will always tell, and if New Zealand keeps up its' quality, and. if .file Dairy. Produce Control Board keeps down transportation costs and sees to'effective marketing, it is hard to foresee a serious slump in-New Zealand dairy produce. . . Finally, there'are compensations. One of these is the prospect of electricity— coming in to ease a good deal of the difficult labour in and about the farm homestead. "The Post has already said a frood deal about this side, and the predictions of eight months ago arc all coming true. Electric lighting of homes and electric drivinc; of milking-machines and plant are already becoming general in the Manawatu, and if the use of electricity for cooking and other purposes about the home follows, farm life, especially for the- women ■ folk—who are at the back of much of the "urge" to the town —will become more pleasant and more attractive, and Man«.;ahao need have no alarm about its load. The chief engineer of the Manawatii-Oroua Power Board (Mr. W. A. Waters) has pointed out that if electric cooking becomes as general in New Zealand as it is already in Canada, it will take about' three-quar-ters of a million horse-power of hydro■electricity, which will solve any ' load problems. Much, however, remains to bo done before thai point of electric»l consumption is attained; if it ever will be. In the meuiilime, electricity in the homes will always be an inducement lo venture on; the great «et*caii«i «( production from the land,.