A FARMER’S LAMENT.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 28 April 1926, Page 11

A FARMER’S LAMENT.

(To the Editor.) Sir, —The following passage was written bj r Emerson over sixty years ago, and all who give the matter serious thought must admit that, as long as the human race depends upon the products of the soil for existence, it must remain a, true statement: “The truth is a farm will not make an honest man rich in money. I do not know of a single instance in which a man has honestly got rich by farming alone. It cannot be done. The way in which men who have farms grow rich is either by other resources, or by trade, or by getting their labour for nothing, or by other methods of which I could tell you many sad anecdotes.” How ridiculous, then, appears the advice to us poor benighted farmers which forms such, a great part of the reading matter in the columns of our daily papers, and which comes mostly from those with little or no experience in practical farming. Every thoughtful farmer knows that his occupation is the oldest industry in the world, and that farming has been carried on by the drudges of the family* ever since the dawn of civilisation in the Nile Valley, which, according to authorities like Breasted and Weigall, must be at least CO,OOO years ago. The practical farmer realises that all this talk about intensive cultivation, increasing production and scientific research as regards agriculture is just piffle while thousands of acres of our best lands are becoming infested with noxious weeds. He realises that all the laboratories, agricultural colleges, and various control boards have to be paid for by. the drudge on the land, but (again to quote Emerson) are always advocated by “Men who love that bloated vanity called public opinion, think all is rvell if they have once got their bantling through a sufficient course of speeches and eheerings of one, two or three public meetings; as if they could do anything: they vote and vote, cry hurrah on both sides, no man responsible, no man caring a pin.” If we must increase production, though heaven only knows what for—“it has been estimated that America alone could supply, with trifling exceptions, the world for 100 years without overworking herself, the rest of the world being idle” (“Money.” by F. Soddy, F.R.S.)—then the first- requirement’s of the New Zealand prdoueers are reductions in their mortgages and men with slashers and grubbers to eradicate noxious weeds, for without these first essentials the advice of professors and instructors, chemical experts and Ministers of the Crown is of no use whatever. Thanking you in an ticipation. —I am, etc., “DAIRY FARMER, ’ ’ Hawera.