HENRY FORD AS FARMER.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 9 April 1927, Page 16

HENRY FORD AS FARMER.

20 DAYS’ WORK TO PRODUCE CROP. NEW YORK. Feb. 9.

The Detroit newspaper Commerce and Finance, announces that Mr. Ford, the multi-millionaire motor-car Jnanufacturer, has purchased a large farm near Dearborn, Michigan, where he intends to demonstrate by public tests how farmers can produce .staple crops by intensive scientific methods with greatly reduced labour. Mtv ' Ford* states .that under his scheme, instead of six months or a year, the actual labour to produce crops will not amount to more than 15 or 20 days . He will allow two days for ploughing and harrowing, one day for planting, five days for cultivation at intervals during growth., and two days for harvesting and threshing, which can now be done simultaneously by a machine which cuts, threshes, and packs the wheat into sacks' as the machine is drawn through the field by a tractor. The total time thus allocated is 10 days, which would leave a margin for ditching, fencing, distributing fertiliser and other work for the production of a crop. It was suggested to Mr. Fiord that his plan presupposed • the use of much machinery operated by many hands, which might become unobtainable if they were employed only a few days at a timei’ancE’nbt more than 2d days in •all. *' ' ' Mr, Ford answered: “banners willing to pay good wages could easily organise, 'so that continuous employment could be provided for labour engaged.

“Agricultural contractors with the necessary ‘men and 'machinery could go from farm to farm and do work in a few daVs at. a cost much less than the value o'f tjie time which the farmer now devotes tb'it/'The plan does not apply to dairy' farming or cattle raising.”

NEED FOR TOP-DRESSINO. Top-dressing is a feature that has received considerable attention in recent years. Writing of its use in the Waikato, a northern paper says of recently felled bushland: The fertility released by the burn is gradually exhausted, more particularly in the case of the lighter soils'and where the rainfall is high. This results in the failing of the better grasses and clovers, the entrance of fern and weeds, a falloff in' carrying capacity, and an increasing amount of unthriftiness in the stock. Breeding stock and young stock, making most- demands on their feed, suffer more severely than mature stock. But unless the settler holds a considerable area,,and is therefore able to manage with a small turnover per acre ewes must be carried and lambs fed.’ Top dressings alone will overcome this difficulty, and phosphatic manures are being used in steadily increasing quantities, thus becoming an-

other item in the bill for maintenance. The cost of top-dressing is high, especially when the fertiliser has to be sledged or packed considerable dis~ tances, and unfortunately the poorer and most acutely deteriorated areas do not respond either so quickly or so strongly as do'the better classes 01 land. 'The best that the settler can do. at the present- prices, at any rate, is to manure his best paddocks and use them as a standby of good nutritious feed while he endeavours to hold the rest of his farm.