FARMS AND FARMERS

Greymouth Evening Star, 16 June 1925, Page 8

FARMS AND FARMERS

ITEMS OF INTEREST.

(By “Rouseabout”).

Mr J. .G. Weir, of Stirling. Otago, has forwarded to Dunedin a potato of the Arran Chief variety, which he considers to be the champion of the season. Dug from a field of 11 acres yielding 79 tons per acre, it weighs 41b. 12 ozs, and measures 10in between its extreme limits.

“If we can place New Zealand dairy farmers on the same footing as Denniaik with regard to our r utter, then our fortune is made,” said Mr A., Howie, Waverley, at the Fanners’ Union Conference in Masterton, when speaking to a remit with regard to tne Dairy Control Board. Mr Howie added that the Tooley Street merchants in London had made millions of money out of the New Zealand produce, but this would cease under control.

The King’s decision, to give up the breeding of Yorkshire coach horses at Hampton Court is another nail in the coffin of the carriage and the caj riage horse, for it was the Yorkshire coach evolved specially to give big horses of quality for carriages, which supplied the dashing turn-outs which only the middle-aged can remember now in the London streets and parks. It was a breed specially associated with driving, and fewer people drive horses for pleasure every year.

Weaning time is perhaps the most critical period in the life of a horse, for a setbadk here may adversely influence its whole career. Where possible the colt should suckle five or six months. By that time it will be feeding along with its mother, and the weaning process will not be so difficult, as the quantity of milk consumed will have been gradually decreased. When weaned the dam and foal should be kept well separated, and the colt placed in quarters where it cannot* injure itself while.fretting for its mother. By having a separate feed box, the colt will soon learn to eat grain while its mother is feeding. After it is .weaned, it should be fed on- such feeds as will keep it growing and develop bone and muscle. Good pasture, with oats as the grain feed, will tend to accomplish this. .Other concentrates which may be used are wheat, bran, linseed meal, and peas, all of* which are rich in nitrogenous matter and tend to build up muscle.

The New Zealand Meat Producers Board has just received a letter from its London Manager, dealing with a description of the. Board’s - exhibit of frozen meat at Wembley Exhibition this year. He state;;. “The consignments of wheat for Wembley have arrived, and they have turned out in a very good order. The lamb Kind mutton have turned out ,-in beautiful condition and, although the quality of last season's was practically perfect.. I think the meat this year is even better.. Our Meat exhibit is completely ready, and I think

we shall make a very good show. In the general meat cabinet, we are making a very fine display in a different form from, las’; year in order to get variety. It has taken 180 lambs and 75 sheep, as well as 20 quarters of beef and 7 pigs, so we will have a very good show of meat. Mr , Warth, in his spare time, has also made with a penknife a miniature butcher’s -shop, complete with motor vans and delivery carts. The whole is made out of black fat, and discloses miniature quarters ol beef, carcases of mutton, lamb and pork, ana it looks most realistic The shop is lit up with electric light, and at my suggestion it is labelled “N.Z. Lamb, Family Butcher.” I am sure it

will attract a good deal of attention, and will be the means of drawing more people to look at our Meat Exhibit. On Mr James Given’s farm in the Gore district at the present time are to be seen a very fine growth of chon mocllier and an exceptional crop Of both soft and hard turnips. Hardly a turnip weighs less than 121 bs. The chou moellier has not yet reached the limit of its growth. There is in all about 20 acres of the best turnips seen in the district for many ye’ars.

Many calves are successfully raised without any milk beyond the first months, being given calf meals.' There are several of these in the market, some of which, manufactured by oldestablished linns and having proven themselves through the years, are entirely usable and reliable. In using a calf meal it is important that directions be carefully iollowed. If this is done, quite as satisfactory heifers will J>e produced as from any other economic method of feeding. Another excellent way to start calves eating grain is to place them in stanchions while they are having their milk, and as they finish the milk place a handful of grain mixture in the bottom of the milk bucket. Soon the calf will get the taste of grain and readily eat it.

Fresh, succulent vegetation, supple mented by a light grain ration, forms the best and most profitable feed for pigs. A good ration on pasture is composed of lib or 21b of a mixture of half corn and half pollard daily, or crushed barley or wheat.

The exceptional nature of the maize crops grown on the flats was the subject of comment by a well-known Poverty Bay farmer, who said that for the last three years he had taken £3O an acre off his land, growing three successive crops of maize. After paying all expenses he had netted £2O an acre profit. His place was a fairly large one, and in consequence he had to employ labour to assist with the crop, but he thought that farmers who were on areas that they could work by themselves would be able to make even more. None of his crops had been less than 100 bushels to the acre, and this season’s, which would be picked about the end of the month, looked as if it would average up to about 110 bushels to tile acre.

The experience/ of a well-known Wanganui farmer is a striking advertisement for the argument that better resits are obtained from purebred sheep than from crossbreds. He possesses a purebred Romney flock and averaged 10lb of fleece light through from his hoggets. The hoggets had only eleven months’ wool on them, and the average price received for his wool was 2s a pound.

Not only monks, but milkmen arc in one place reverenced as gods. Among the Todas in Southern India a dairy is a sacred place, and the milkman who attends it is considered divine. He makes no obeisance even to the sun,

and all his fellow men, even his own

father, bow to the earth before him. No one.dares to deny him anything, o rtouch him, and when lie speaks he speaks oracles. “I want to see a good farmer on a good farni raise a good crop and secure a good price. Every citizen among us has a personal concern, in the welfare of the farmer. The fortunes of all of

us will in the end go up or down with his. If we ever pennit our farming population to fall to the level of a mere agricultural peasantry, they will carry down with them the general social and economical level. The farmer is not only a producer; ho is likewise a merchant. It does him no good to get quantity production —in fact, it'may do him harm —unless he also can have scientific marketing.” — President Coolidge.

. Talking of the question of farmers helping ono another in the paddock and whether the assisting farmer was equivalent to an employee a. member of the South Taranaki executive of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union said: “When I go to help another farmer in his paddock he is boss ; when he comes to me, I am boss.” This was accompanied by a reference to accident insurance, and another member said: “The fact is, though being boss, he has got to pay the piper.”