ON THE LAND

Feilding Star, Volume XVIII, Issue 4576, 29 April 1922, Page 4

ON THE LAND

NEWS, VIEWS, COMMENTS. "Owing to the state of the frozen meat' market at Home and the consequent decline in the export trade, freezing works employees haVti had the worst season they have experioncc'd for years, remarked Mr W. E. Sill, secretary of the Auckland Freezing Workers'' Un'on. Usually this industry, he said, absorbed hundreds, of workers, but this season there was not half the number employed, and those engaged had had a very broken time. Ho did not think that the slaughtermen had had one full week. A farmer from the-North who has returned from a holiday in Canterbury, in the course of which he motored from Chris.church vo Picton, states that conditions in the wheatgrowing areas were good at the present time. In Christchurch there was a certain amount of unemployment, but money from the wheat harvest was proving a saving grace. So far as pastoral products were concerned, the position in Canterbury was similar to those in other portions of tho Dominion. Apparently a good deal of barley and oats have been sown in the Wanganui district ihis season to provide green feed, as indicated by tho orders that have gone out. The growing of barley is evidently increasing in popularity, and mora orders have been filled this season than has hitherto been the case. Good seed barley is worth about 4s 9d per bushel on rail at Wanganui.

Speaking at the Farmers' school at Weraroa, Mr E. Clifton, late of the Stock Division, drew a comparison be-1 tween Now ZealanJ and America. In the latter country the life of the far-i mer was one of servitude and misery, i The summer days were devoted to the crowing of feed for the stock in winter. The conditions were inconceivable to Zealandcrs. A pen of two-year steers offered at the Levin slock sale this week were found hard to quit. At length 47s Cd was offered, and the auctioneer looked inquiringly at the vendor. The latter was anything but cheered. "They are all oil fern country," he said to all within hearing. ""Right." shouted the auctioneer. "Had nothing but fern and scenery!" That decided it. The prico jumped by ss, the purchaser evidently considering the animals must at least have been good doers..

Mr J. L. Bruce, superintendent of experimental farms, in an address at the Stock Farm at Levin, spoke of the necessity of the proper feeding of dairy cows, and in this connection he recommended farmers to try a little oilcake with their best cows and see what happened. When farmers saw an abundance of feed in the spring, they were apt to forget that it was not so long since the cows were rambling round the paddocks looking for something to eat. He had recently had experience of a place where there were 22 cows and they were not giving sufficient milk for requirements. He did not wish to speak boastfully, but by selection he had reduced the herd to eight cows, and in June, as tho result of feeding, the eight cows were giving more milk than the former herd of 22.

There has been little demand for oatsheaf chaff, so far this season in Wanganui, oxcept for tradesmen's horses. Some Hawko's Bay growers have sent samples along, but, apparently owing to the bad season they experienced during the harvest, the colour is not of the brightest. The loss to grain-growers in Hasvke's Bay this year has been very heavy, and in several instances the farmers were unable to harvest their crops, and these will be ploughed in for manure

A Wanganui Herald reporter was shown a sample of wheat in a local store this morning that had been rejected by the southern milkers and classed as fowl wheat. The sample was bright and in every way of good quality and fit for milling; in fact, was a great deal better than plenty of the wheat made into flour last season. This is evidently one of the instances where the millers attempted to pick the eyes out of the market, with a hope of returning later and buying the wheat at a much cheaper rate, and is one of the games that the Government is doing its best to block

"This time last year," said a Wairarapa dairyman, "our factory paid out Is lOd for butter-fat; th : s year it is paying lOd. How does that strike you ? It means to me a difference of £2BOO. There is just this point about' it though, and that is the season. I ( have never experienced another like it. I commenced hand-feeding my' herd in January last year, but this year there is a superabundance- of. young grass, and the cows are doing' well and milking splendidly. About this time 12 months ago the factory was running one vat every other day, [ but this year two vats are in daily! use. The extra yield from the cows, will just about make up the loss on last year's pay-out. This year the. factory will •lay out about 1 s 3d or Is sd. so, after all, things are not so bad as thsy might ho." j The Northern Wairoa Co-operative ( Dairy Co. is advancing Is per lb but-j tor-fat for April. j About 15,000 sheep and lambs were crowded into the pens at the I3alclu-| tha stock sale last week-end. Fat ( lambs were in great demand by export> buyers, and values were better by over j half a crown than at the previous i fortnightly sale. A .line of 287 : sent forward by Mr Kerr, manager for Sir John Ross, at Pukepito, topped the market at 30s a head, which was es-i timated to he equivalent to 9d |a lb.

This season, Mr James Butler, of "Winton (Otago) sowed 300 acres in wheat. The yield exceeded expectations. One paddock averaged 75 bushels to the acre of first grade quality throughout. Off 140 acres 2400 bags were obtained, and Mr Butler has vet to thresh fully 2000 bags. The grain in stack has not at all been marred by the weather. Other district wheat crops, more particularly in the Benmore and Dipton districts, have also yielded a high percentage. Southland has long since gained fame as an oat-producing centre, and it would appear (says the Winton Record) that the time is at hand when it would come to be regarded as a wheat-growing province. Mr T. Moss, at the Eketahuna Farmers' Union meeting, :aid lie had not taken as much active interest of late in the union, for the reason that it was chiefly associated with the sheep farmers, while his interests were more in the direction of the dairy farmers' problems, and he deplored the fact that the two classes were not closer together. In Auckland,- the dairy farmers had branched oft, but ho did not think there was room for two unions. The politics of all classes of farmers were identical, and one organisation would have greater influence than would two. Some 900 acres in the Auckland Forest Conservation Region were gazetted as set apart for State forest purposes. Mr Robert Kennedy , of . Drummond, Southland, recently shipped a number of Clydesdales to Melbourne, including tho stallion John Douglas, which realised 525 guineas. How far do swaggers usually travel in a day? One who has.just made the journey from Poverty Bay to Wai-i rarapa estimates that he averaged lo miles daily. His longest day was 30 miles—from Waipukurau to Poraingahau. "There are foar classes of people interested in forestry," said a member of tho Forest Service to. a Times reporter. "First, the nature lover who calls upon the public to preserve tho forests for their beauty and for the bird and animal life; then the individual who think? that the forests should be retained for the use of posterity without counting the cost to present civilisation; next is the per-, son who looks upon forestry as a busi-, ness of planting and growing. The Forest Service is none of these._ It is in'a class all alone. Its motto is a

slogan which might well be adopted by all its supporters, 'lfefi your forests, but use thorn' well?, It covers all—preserves the forest, bird and animal life, because .the latter preserve the balance of power by keeping down all injurious insects; and where tho native forests are insufficient to supply the needs of present civilisation arid posterity, to plant the necessary trees. But' whether they be native bush or man-made forests, they must be used to the best advantage. That is the work of the Forest Service."