FARM and DAIRY

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 6 February 1926, Page 14

FARM and DAIRY

NOTES BY THE WAY.

<*Use super,” said an experience'! progressive fanner; ‘‘it always pays. Ami it van be got now at Us per cwt and will quite likely bo less in tlio future.

The value of good working of a farm is stressed by the instance of a farm near Manaia which some years ago would not run one cow to three acres, but which now carries well a cow to .ess than two acres —fifty arc doing well where thirty starved. And lucerne is one of the secrets, for as good stands as could be seen anywhere were seen on the farm.

A dairy farm on the Plains was sold recently at £48 —which, in the boom time was sold for £125. An old farmer gives it as his opinion that there is tendency to go to the other extreme and be over cautious. He knows the land well and considers That there is a good living in it at a considerably higher figure if farmed well. It was profitably worked at one time at £OO with butter-l'at less than eighteenpence.

A SCOTCH VISITOR’S IMPRESSIONS. OUR FARMING. One of the leading members of the British bowling party, when in Christchurch, gave the Press a few of his impressions on farming in New Zealand. He said: —“I am a lawyer and a banker by profession, out I have been connected all my life with the management of land and I have a good knowledge of agriculture. I was very favourably impressed with the Canter bury Plains, but I do not consider that the land is so well farmed as it is in England. Your methods appear rather crude. 1 have, not seen good ploughing since I came to New Zealand. -During a motor drive out from Tirnaru, I saw some very good crops of wheat —• crops that would be considered good on ttie best land in Scotland.

“I have had a long municipal experience, over 30 years, and so I have called on the town clerks m most <1 the towns I have visited. I have been most favourably impressed with the initiative and resource of the corporations, both of Australia and of New Zealand, and your large towns are quite up-to-date. ” Prior to his departure from Scotland, he was asked by several farmers to ascertain the position ir. regard to immigration in New Zealand, u.nd his investigations have led him to believe that farmers would have better prospects out here than at Home. They would have to be prepared to work liard, and if they had a little capital success would come to them sooner.

OPPORTUNITIES FOR SETTLERS. That the Otira Tunnel has made a great difference to the farming industry ou the West Coast was the opinion expressed by Mr W. W. Smart, a resident of Havelock North for many years. •The tunnel has brought sheep and dairy farmers on the Coast within easy distance of the Addington saieyards,” said Mr Smart, “which has encouraged them considerably. 1 was staying at a place about 17 miles south of Ross, ivhere the farmers sold their fat lambs on the trucks at Ross at 31s. showing the benefits which have accrued from the opening of a big market. Pigs can be put ou the trucks at Ross on Tuesday and sold at Addington on Wednesday. West Coast farmers have been brought into closer touch with ; I>ig buyers, and there is more competition for their stock.” Mr Smart went on to say that there were thousands of acres of good dairying land on the Coast which, lie expected, most people did not know about. He noticed also that thousands of acres or good land were covered with blackberry. It was a great pity that this pest could not be eradicated; it was impossible to get rid of blackberry, however. if a farmer poisoned tne bush, he poisoned his land also. "in iny opinion,” he went on,” there is plenty of room over there for settlers with energy. -Host of th e farmers already there are prosperous, and. some milk as many as fifty cows. At Hari turn, where i spent a short time, there is a great deai of excellent land. It is now a thriving district, with a dairy factory, where a comparatively short, time ago there was only bush. There is a private tramway from Ross to within easy distance of Hari Hari, and • suppose it :is on y a matter of time before it gets right into the district, the Coast is a good fanning country. They have a lot of rain there, but it is warm rain, and everything seems to thrive under it?’

PIGS IN AMERICA. The United States of America has by far the largest pig population in the world, having in" 1924 66,130,000 pigs. Large, however, r.s this figure may seem, it is more than 2,000,00 lees than the pig population of the United States in 1923. This fact alone is of importance to pig breeders and fattenei'.s in the Commonwealth, as it bears out the various statements which have come to hand showing that in the United States the pig supply is not only diminishing, but there is every likelihood that, whatever the supply may be, it will to a large extent be absorbed by local consumers, and thus opportunity will be given to develop an export trade for bacon and pork products with Great Britain. For many years very large quantities of American bacon and pig products have been imported to England.

I ENCOURAGING BIG LITTERS. II a or sow of mine has 14 teals, T do not hesitate to leave 13 youngsters with her, provided that none of them are suffering from any very glaring complaints (remarks a correspondent). Unequal milk distribution is <>i ten caused by a gilt having some of her youngsters taken from her. .Hence when. she farrows for the second time a certain number of her teats have never boon in use before, and milk will always .How into those teats which have had the most use. A great point often overlooked in rearing large litters is the necessity of feeding the sow, from | two days after farrowing, in proportion to the litter she has to rear, steadily increasing her ration as soon as there is the slightest sign of the youngsters dragging her down. Plenty of fresh, green grass, a certain amount of green fodder (beans, peas and tares) and mangolds will he found to help the milk supply tremendously. The better the condition of a pig within reason, the hotter chance she has of doing her prospective litter justice. A great deal has been said of late about sows with an excess of fat. A sow in reasonably good condition makes a far better mother than her thin and scraggy sister, who is far more likely to lie upon her young through awkwardness and rushing about than her perfectly contented sister.

VALUE OF MILK RECORDS.

The existence of milk records assists the herd owner in selecting the heifer calves from his best milkers to Ire retained for coming into the herd three years hence. But milk records are also invaluable in the selection of a bull. Like begets like, and we l.now that the father and mother exert an approximately equal influence or. the dairy qualities of the offspring. Seeing that the bull that .fathers the herd has some 50 sons and daughters in the course of the year, whereas the cow has only one or tivo, it follows that the bull is far more important than any individual cow. A bull that is to be useful to the dairy farmer must carry a guarantee not only as regards the outward appearance and the constitution of his offspring, hut also as regards their milking ability.

DAIRYING IN AMERICA. HUGE YEARLY PRODUCTION Consumers in the United States paid approximately five billion dollars for dairy produce in 1025, or one-fifth of their total expenditure for food. Even so, they made a good bargain as they secured 38 per cent, of the encigy value of their ration and nearly 18 per cent, of their protein from dairy products If to the value of dairy products there is added the value of the increase in dairy cows, and the value of the calves and dairy bulls sold for slaughter, it would make a total f ncarlv three billion dollars. This is over half the value of all animal products produced in the United States last vear, and one-fourtli of the total net value of the entire agricultural production, including crops aud anim 1 products. The farm value of all milk, according to three estimates, was 2.25 dollars a hundred as compared with 2.42 dollars in .1923 and 2.04 dollars in 1922.

The consumption of whole milk for 1924 amounted to 54.75 gallons per capita for the 112,075,010 consumers in the United States. This is an increase of one and three-fouitlis gallons over the 19,23 average aud an increase of nearly twelve gallons over the average in 1918.

In estimating the amount of milk fed to calves, it is estimated that the number of calves raised amounts to 85 per cent, of the number of dairy cows and that each calf consumes 2001 b of wh.Yo milk.