FARM and DAIRY

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 18 October 1924, Page 11

FARM and DAIRY

_ NOTES BY THE WAY. 1, i The countryside, as a result of the c earlier rains, says a Canterbury cor- c respondent, was looking splendid. '1 Cereal crops and pastures had shown i phenomenal growth during the fort- ' night, and spring-sown wheat, for once, 1 “caught it right.” A number of fields are to be seep showing well through 3 the ground, and it is a fair assumption ? that there has been a good spring 1 sowing of either wheat or oats. The c mild winter favoured a good rooting of T autumn-sown, wheat, and Saturday’s f downpour, which, will penetrate well I into the soil and provide a much- I needed reserve of moisture, should . allay all apprehension as to the early c slimmer prospects. The rain fell most £ heavily along the coast, which has not j been so fortunate in the earlier visita_ «; tions as the districts nearer the hills, t Mr Jupp, of the London office of the ] New Zealand Loan and Mercantile q Agency Co., Ltd., who has visited many £ of the dairying centres of New Zealand, q is very favourably impressed with the j high standard the industry has attain- r ed. The farmers were, he said, to be ~ congratualted upon the conscientious f manner in which they were working £ up the dairy industry. He had observed c that factories in the Dominion were ; thoroughly up to date. The movement j to establish herd-testing associations £ was one of which he could r of, sj eak ' £ too highly, as this was recognised as r one of the most useful methods of in- 1creasing production and improving the * quality of dairy produce. 7 The Maoris of Waimana have c-c.n- t sidered for 'some time the setting aside \ of a piece of land for the erection of a £ college for the higher education of f their children (says- the Wliakatane Press). Now, the R-uaboki Natives, in , view of the fact that the Waimana- * Maoris were only able to give 70 acres ( of the site, have asked that the school • be erected at Ruatoki, where they were < willing to engfow the school with 200 acres. This was agreed to, and nego- ( tiations were commenced with Te Iwi- £ kino and family for a piece of land • of 100 acres. They readily consented to the proposal, and, with another 700 ' acres promised by the Ruatcnri .owners, / a site of 200 acres is assured. HIGHEST-PRICED BULL. i j Here is a picture (of a scrub bull) * of the highest-priced hull in the world, , says the August Dairy Parmer. Look ( at his head, his general type and ( breed character. Can you heat him ? He is the most costly bull in the world, and looks the part. He has ] cost the farmers of this country more than any other hull they have used. ■ He. is - the mosj; .expensive hqll that can head any herd of good cattle. lie . is the scrub bull. i If you happen to own him, take all i your friends down to the paddock when < they visit and show them your high- i priced bull. They may pronounce you 1 a man of means to lie able to afford ( such a luxury. Only a man of means < can own him and keep from going ■ bankrupt. ■ j SUMMERTIME BILL. i A MAORI PROTEST. ' i j A very emphatic opposition to Mr < Sidey’s long proposed Summertime Bill ' was" shown by a Maori member, who 1 vigorously attacked, the proposal in tlie 1 Bill to interfere witli the clock. '“lf ] this is not regarded as serious by the j ■ pakeha, it is very serious for the \ Maori,” said Mr Uru, whose voice ( boomed to- every corner of the chain-! 1 her. “The Natives are the. very energy of dairying. They took up dairying, ; and have had obstacles in their way r such "a-s finance. No.w the natives are | to be prevented from going ahead. If you prevent the Natives from dairying, they will go hack to the town to get the ‘privilege.'' I have been a dairy farmer for many years, and I get up early in the morning. I have no need to set the clock; I get up.” (Hear, hear). Warming to his task, Mr TJru asked why the pakeha could not introduce the summertime scheme in the towns, if they wanted more; sport. %■ was a sportsman, and he believed in sport, but the interests and the benefit cf the I Maoris and the country came fT st. ‘ ‘I think the Bill is unwarranted. L hear! abet of memhers say it lias oeen tried I ija other countries. But don’t let us trv it here, if we are not certain it j will be a success. That is wny I will J not support the Bill. JAPANESE VISITORS. SURVEY OF AGRICULTURE. WELLINGTON, Oct. 1. The two .Japanese commissioners who are visiting New Zealand for the / pi l r.pose of studying the Dominion’s breeds of cattle and sheep will not he able to tour the whole country owing to lack of time, hut *hc Department of Agriculture is doing all it, can to ensure that they may gather all the information possible. Their itinerary will not extend further south fthan Canterbury. In the Huose of Representatives today Mr. P. A. de la. Perrellc (Awarua) asked the Minister of Agriculture (the TTon. W. Nosworthv) whether he would provide the visitors with every facility for visiting all -parts of t.he Dominion and also whether he - would arrange with the officers of the department to take them to farms where rrarebred stock was.raised. Mr. de la Perrelle pointed out that as a result of the commissioners’ report the Japanese Government might begin to purchase- stud cattle and sheep in New Zealand. The Minister, in reply, said that the commissioners were making only a very short, visit, as they had to sail from Auckland o-n October LI. However, the Department of Agriculture was arranging that thev should see as much as possible in the time available, more particularly respecting sheep and wool. He regretted that they would m>t be able to go further south than Canterbury. DAIRYING IN POVERTY BAY. TARANAKI CATTLE SELECTED. A NATIVE ENTERPRISE. h An interesting visitor to Stratford at the present time is Mr J. B. Fenn. organising manager and secretary of s the Ngatiporou Cc-operative Dairy Co., u Poverty Ba.v. The company which has h been formed to carry on this enterprise y consists almost wholly of Maoris, and 7 very lew pakehas are concerned in it. f The Hon. A. T. Ngata is the prime mover. >f No difficulty has been experienced ‘S in obtaining the necessary capital, d which has already been over-subscribed d in the district in which the factory g will operate, where there is a great ;- deal of land, consisting of river flats and hilly country, which had been

hitherto used exclusively . for sheepfarming. It has been carrying up to eight sheep to the acre, and it was considered to be. good cattle country. Therefore the new company intend to run dairy cattle on the land which it was estimated would carry three or four thousand cows. In the course cf conversation, Mr. benn stated Ao a Stratford Post representative that a meeting of the company had been held .recently, and it was decided to take ad- , vantage of the experience of the breed- | ei's in Taranaki, which province has ; been noted for its fine cattle. There- : fore Mr Fenn was deputed to. visit , Taranaki, and lias made three visits to . this province, having travelled from , one end of it to the ctljer. On his i first visit Mr Fenn purchased 150 year- j ljngs, all of which were obtained in the , Stratford district, and. on his second trip, he obtained another 500. This- J latter were secured in various parts of , Taranaki, but the majority came from ‘ the Waitara and "Stratford areas. ; Those cattle were taken by train to ' Napier, after which they had a jour- ' nev by boat which lasted for 21 hours, ' ; and on tep of that they were driven * for forty miles. In spite of all that ' they reached their destination in good order with the exception of six, which ; were lost- on the railway. After the heifers had been obtained it was, of course, necessary to go into the question of securing good bulls, : and he procured these from. Taranaki ; also. In conclusion, Mr Fenn said that the 1 Maoris made excellent- sheep farmers, and in cases where they had gone in for dairying the results had been en- ; firely satisfactory. The proposed factory was well situated, and' was -only ' twenty-six miles from Tokomarn Bay, at which place Home boats called. The ; cream would be home separated. In connection with tlie factory, he stated it would be up to date in every re- 1 spect, and would cost £6OOO. Operations would commence shortly after Ohristmns. When the present sejxem.e ■ was set in motion it was proposed to inaugurate a, similar one in the Bay of Plenty, at a place called Tp Kahn., which was situated * forty-two- miles from Opctiki. The result- of the new departure will will be awaited with interest. The very best grade heifers and best pedigree hulls which have been selected will, of course, make for /the buildingup of a- fine herd, and it will he interesting to see how the experiment turns out. IMPROVEMENT OF DAIRY HERDS. (Hamilton Times.) The paramount importance of development pursuits along lines which lead to the most efficient results in the individual and the collective ratio, cannot be ' stressed too much. Now Zealand hag made wonderful strides in this respect, but the injunction to be ever on the qui vive cannot be. unduly stressedlt is a necessitous activity in development, which, entered upon, must be followed with an intelligent observation if the maximum i progress is to- be secured and developed- Under that category Can Be 'introduced the dairying industry, which has made immense Strides during its comparatively young existence as New Zealand’s primary' producing avenue. Great as the results for good have been in the east, the keenness of competition under the. surveillance of our I many producing neighbours in all parts [of the world /exacts continued attention from those directly concerned. ! One of the salient tap roots of supply calls for the sire of the butter-fat I producing herd being established upon the most efficient lines which scient-i-I fic data can provide. This leads us to comment in highlv favourable terms upon the efforts of the Combined Pedigree Breeders’ Association in the Waikato. During the comparatively short period the Association’s endeavours liave been in circulation an incalculable measure of progress has been made, rind the Association has earned the heartiest encomiums of every dairy farmer who bestows to it the intellectual attention his important business demands of him. I MORE MILK FROM MILLET. ! Japanese millet has successfully I solved the problem of getting more milk per cow during the dry summer 'months for hundreds of North Island farmers during the past few seasons. ‘‘l know of-nothing better as summer fodder for cows,” said one farmer recently, when reporting that his sevenacre crop had provided two hours’ grazing dailv for 60 cows over a period of three' months. This good opinion is general, and can be accounted for under several headings, not the least of which are: (1) Japanese millet is easy to grow. (2) Produce's palatable pasture six or seven weeks from date of sowing. (3) Can he grazed with sheep or ' cattle without danger of deaths, 1 bloat, or milk taint. In short, millet is an all-round dependable and profitable crop, particularly foi tlie dairy farmer. Millets, of which there are several > varieties, . are sub-tropical plants of - the grass family. Japanese millet js ■ the favourite, and in natural growth i attains a height of five feet or more, producing an abundance of green, suc- * culent, grass-like leaves. In practice > it is found to pay best when kept grazed, the stock being turned on the crop when it has attained a height of eight to ten inches. If eaten down at . this time it stools out well, and pro- , vides several subsequent feedings. By . reason of the ease with which it may lie fed, and because of ite many good , points,' it has "been described as the [ “King of Summer Fodders” in AusI tralia, and is much grown in the NewSouth Wales and Victorian States.

Introduced into the Auckland province some years ago. millet hae since become popular in all parts of the North Island, and is now finding its way to the South. It should be observed by South Island farmers that it will not stand frosts, and should be grown strictly for summer grazing, o.r hay and ensilage, for which is it particularly suited.

FARMING INTERESTS. In some very sensible remarks on various subjects of importance to farmers the Sydney Morning Herald says, inter alia : Forests. We have no stabilised plan for ideally using our wonderful timbers, j mainly because dependent on the will and fancy of changing Parliamentary parties, and upon commercial interests. We have no statistics relating to the rate at which we are destroying our timber, as compared with the amount of annual growth, and our planting is infinitesimal, and 75 per cent of forest products are lost through fire and wasteful methods. Ideally, no timber should be burned; it is' all

wanted. The fact that it does not pay to keep it mu6t not prevent us from devising some. means for getting over the difficulty in marketing. It is estimated that forest fires can be almost prevented at a cost equal to about one-fifth the value of the timber annually destroyed. To burn the timber when clearing for cultivation is a national crime, and a remedy should lie found. Matches use annually many thousand of acres of pine forest. In three months one of the New York papers consumes 840 acres of timber. How can we suggest the use of our timbers for such purpose; surely we should he seeking some other suitable material. Soil. We have already alienated the best of our cultivable soil, and now largely fail to get sufficient success on poorer areas. We clear the tops of the hills, with a result that the soil' cap is sooner or later removed. We kill off timber, wholesale; if this occurs on slopes the soil becomes loosened, and ultimately the hillsides become bare. Heavy grazing opens up the soil to running water, with the result that canyon-like creeks are formed, some of considerable size. This becomes extreme on clay soil. Fortunately, we do not lose soil altogether, as with the Mississippi and Amazon areas; our sojl is removed merely from one soil area to .another. We badly need a soil survey, and we do not yet even speak or write of the really small area man (two' or three acres); a matter that must soon come to the front, along with the companion subject, how to supply the household from the farm. Waste is prodigious.. It does not pay to collect our empty tins, waste -paper, and rags, yet a Central European nation could afford, to take our empty kerosene tins, pressed flat to save space. Mine waste must be about half what is handled. ' The smoke problem is still with us; Sydney harbour proves the fact. Our garbage is burned at home, or taken out to sea;, it should surely be possible to use it in our power houses. The one industry which seems to have no waste is butchering. It will serve no purpose to further extend this list. Roosevelt said it was ominously evident that the natural resources are. in course of rapid, exhaustion. Statistics in plenty could lb© quoted to prove the fact, for Australia as well as for the United States. The marvel is we still go blindly ahead with our out-of-date methods; - seemingly afraid of a national stocktaking, or indifferent. So long as we ape making money, why need we trouble about what will not concern us? What has posterity done for me? Which is no argument at all. NEW FOREST CUSTOMS. SOME CURIOUS “RIGHTS.” It is customary to think of William the Conqueror as a tyrant and the making of -the New Forest as one of his crowning acts, but history is proverbially inaccurate, and there are facts that would suggest that, in this, the first William has been maligned. In th© first place there is evidence to prove, that the New Forest existed in the -reign of Canute in 1017, and although the Conqueror may have made the interests of the forest dwellers subservient to his passion for hunting, yet he gave them many privileges that ‘exist to this day. ’■ The history of' these rights is a history of endless bickering between the jOrown. which from time to time tried to abolish them, and the Forest people who have jealously guarded them. Matters were eventually brought to a head in 1864, when an. Act was passed granting specified houses and lands certain rights, at the same time giving the Crown facilities for preserving deer. The Crown ‘ was represented by a “Deputy Surveyor of the New Forest,”- an office that still exists, and the people by a body called “The Verderers’ Court,” which still meets every six weeks in its Chamber at tbe King’s ‘House, Lvndhuref. It is composed of six Verderers, elected .by the Commoners, and presided over by an Official Verderer, and has the same powers as a petty sessional court, but in practice it deals only with Forest, offences, -such as damage to trees, pony-stealing, poaching, etc. ‘ A register is* kept of the houses and lands enjoying specified rights, and some of them are interesting. Some houses, for instance, 'possess “The Right of Cprdwood” (firewood)', and however humble the man may be whose house has this right, he must have free firewood cut and stacked for fiim by the Crown, and must he notified by the Deputy Surveyor when it is ready for him and where. If a house has “The Right of Turbary” (cutting turf for the fire) it pan only be used so long as the old chimney remains, and for this reason many houses that have been rebuilt in the New Forest have the old open hearth and chimney preserved. There is also “The Right of Mast” (acorns and beech nuts), of “Pasturing Ca-t----tie,” “Digging Peat,” “Digging Marl,” “The Right of Panage” (turning out hogs in the Forest), and the “Right of Hook and- Crook” (taking wood for firewood that can be cut with a hook' and reached with a crook).

The sturdy little New - Forest ponies are well known, but it is only some land that carries with it the right to turn them loose in the Forest to graze. They are all branded, and their tails cut with a sideways clip into either side at the root. They are under surveillance of an “agister,” whose business it is to see that none is turned out unbranded and that no one turns out more than he is privileged to do.

QUEER CATTLE TO BE BRED IN NORTH. EDMONTON, Aug. 26. Queer cattle, with hairy manes and double woolly coats, will soon he grazing on the relatively barren Arctic tundra, 1000 miles to the north, according to Sir Robert Greig, chairman of the Scottish Board of Agriculture, an authority on live stock, who predicted success for Dominion experimental work at Wainwright to secure crossbred cows, in his address to the agricultural section of the British Association at the Univeretiv of Alberta. “Generally the plough is twenty times as efficient as the animal in uroducing food from a given area,” Sir Robert said. “But animals can make available territory which is of little use for crop growing. The present tendency in animal husbandry is to view animals from the standpoint of their efficiency for turning raw materials into products fit for human consumption,” he stated. Working on this principle, the department of the interior is developing a eow-buffaio hybrid which will, withstand severe northern climatic conditions. Some 700 ft animals are being used in the experiments. “As soon as we get some buffalo blood info the cow. there will he extensive live stock development in the northern areas.” Sir Robert told the scientists. “Tlie experiments are being carried out on a large scale, and success seems imminent.”