ON THE LAND

Feilding Star, Volume XVIII, Issue 4595, 23 May 1922, Page 4

ON THE LAND

NEWS, VIEWS, COMMENTS. Many dairy farmers do not place sufficient importance upon the development of the cow’s uddor. According to recent reports the Ayrshire is scoring heavily in America for consistent production in milk and butter fat. The number of sheep put through the Waingawa freezing works this seaison is oxpocted to be fully up to that of last year. In beef, however, there will be a distinct shortage. This season will run another fortnight. A facetious witness at the Greytown Magistrate’s Court informed a questioning counsel “that some farmers were just as cute as lawyers.” The Chief Poultry Inspector, Mr F. C. Brown, referring to sex-determina-tion in eggs, said a man confided to him that he had found that if a lien laid an egg when her head was pointing to the north the egg would be a female, and if to the south a rooster would emerge. A farmer stated in the Assessment Court at Wanganui that he had kept double entry books during the 10 years he had had his farm of 250 acres. The best year he had was in 1920, when he cleared £BIB, and the worst was last year when he made £378. A South Wairarapa settler has frozen on his own account bullocks which cost him £l4 10s a head two years ago, and have been grazed since on land valued at £6O per acre. He is courageously waiting the result. A largo proportion of dairy farmers rug their cows during the winter. The practice is extending, and the effect on the animal is all for the good. Farmers who rug their cows in cold weather, consistently are unanimous in testifying that it improves the general condition of the animals, and if the cows are in milk it maintains the How in a very important degree. Mr Massey stated that the creation of the Meat Control Board had meant an increase in the value of every fat bullock in the Dominion ol from 35s to £2 p>er head. Young Ayrshire bulls from tested cows are selling for high prices in Scotland. Mr J. Logan, of Bargenoch, obtained 335 guineas for a bull nine months old, by a sire named Overton Foundation, out of a cow with a record of 13,0001 b. of milk in 40 weeks. ,

What effect the foot and mouth epidemic will have on the price of butter and meat in Great Britain is difficult to state, but the visitation is the worst in the memory of present-day breeders. The slauglicr of so many animals must have an immediate effect on the supply of fresh meat, milk and butter. It was mentioned at a meeting of dairy farmers at Rototuna that when a Waikato dairy company advertised in England for a London manager, it received 150 replies, ranging from a clerk who would do the job for £4 a week to a major-general who considered hi's sendees worth £3OOO pier annum. On investigation, however, not one of the 150 applicants proved to be the man required for the position.

The wages paid to assistants on dairy farms loomed largely during the hearing of a case at the Greytown Magistrate’s Court. One dairy farmer stated that a married man he employed to assist in milking and do general farm work was paid £3 7s 6d per week and find himself. Ho had paid this wage for two seasons. One of his neighbours last season paid a married assistant £5 per week, but this season he had the same work done for £3. In cross-examination, witness admitted that he allowed his man house rent free and provided him with free milk, butter, firewood, and land for a kitchen garden.

This season is believed to be the longest on record as far as the Wairarapa is concerned. Usually tho end of April sees the dairy factories closing their doors, but this season most of them will see May out.

Prevention is better than euro, was the pith of Mr R. H. Meade’s remarks to suppliers at the Longburn factory. “Keep the stock in health, he said, and qualified the remark by the adjuration to start at tho right ’end—by keeping the land properly cultivated and the supply of feed maintained.

The chief external signs of good digestion in the cow are a largo abdomen, deep, broad or long, but preferably deep broad and long; a mellow skin, affected, of course, more or less by length of time in milka large, strong mouth and jaw; a bright eye, and a strong constitution —that is, lots of room for the vital organs, the lungs and heart.

Mr P. J. Small is reported to have said at a dairy farmers’ smoke concert at Longbnrn that he saw the man who was the first white child born m New Zealand driving a horse down Rangitikei street the other day that he was driving 24 years ago. 1 almerston North was not heard of at the date of that man’s birth, and yet he was still hale and hearty. The fruit season is now practically over in Hawke’s Bay, only a few verylate varieties of apples and pears being left on the trees. Orchardists have had a splendid season, and are probably among the few sections or the community that are not deeply affected by the “slump.” The crops have been above the average, and the prices on the whole satisfactory. “What price do you expect to receive for butter-fat this season?” asked counsel of two dairy farmers at the Greytown Court, One, settles was optimistic enough to think that lie would receive from Is 3d to Is fid per pound. The other man thought he would be lucky if the price reached Is 2d. For the past 12 or more years the lowa- Experimental Station has been carrying on experiments to show the effects of using well bred purebred dairy bulls for improving common or scrub cows. The cows used in this experiment, so far as known, carried no blood of any of the several dairy breeds. These cows were put to purebred bulls, including Guernsey, Friesian, and Jersey. The daughters ot these jmrebred bulls and out of the common cows proved themselves much superior to their dams. “I can tell you,” said a sheep farmer to a Levin Chronicle representative the other day, “that some sheep farmers sold their wool last season as low as 2sd per lb., and.unfortunately one of those farmers has gone to the wall.” The producer, our informant stated, was still under a big handicap. Shearing cost 3d to 4d per sheep, woolpacks were 4s fid as against 2s fid pre-war and 7s fid during the war. The latter price, of course, was the highest, but at that time good prices were ruling for wool and the higher prices for packs was not much noticed. It was stated by a dairy farmer at Greytown that if a dairy herd averaged £ls per cow this season it would do well. “You-will hear nothing about the £25 and £27 cow this season,” he said.

Farmers are at present having their oat stacks cut into chaff about Shannon. "While the wet weather is retarding progress in this direction,, ihe growth of, grass has kept up splendidly, and supplies at the dairy factory are not falling as quickly as usual for this time of the year. In France, Belgium, Scandinavia, Holland, Austria and Germany there have been established agricultural machinery testing stations, the_ object of which are to test, both scientifically and practically, such machinery as may be submitted, and to issue reports thereon, the publication of the reports being confidential or public, as the ease may be. Mr A. E. Fear, organiser of the

Dairy Farmers’ Union, stated at a meeting of dairymen that the average production of the dairy cow of the Dominion last year was 1631 b. of butter-fat, as against as high as 3001 b in some other companies. This showed that the New Zealand farmer was not progressing, and it was high tinio that more attention was given to the dairy herds in order to increase production. Farm wage rates in the United States dropped approximately 37 per cent, during the calendar year reaching an average of £8 13s 4d per month without board, and £7 16s bd per month with board, according to data recently compiled by the United States Department of Agriculture. Farmers who were employed did not profit by this drop in farm wage rates, as the prices of the things they produced and sold likewise declined m about the same proportion as wage ritP« The average value of crops is estimated to have dropped about 37 per cent, in 1921, and live-stock prices were also much lower.