NOTES.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 25 June 1927, Page 16

NOTES.

That farmers in the district are optimistic of the future and confident of success in farming Plains land is shown by the fact that several .sales have taken place lately near Manaia. One section of 100 acres was bought at a little over £SO per acre, hut the farm has a good house and buildings. Other sections have been sold in the same locality recently at prices which must be considered its the right value for these times, for the -purchasers are men who know the conditions thoroughly. It is good to see operations such as these in the district. The land in question is practically all level, lying nicely to the sun and on good roads. “In a trip through the ivereone district recently. I saw among the returned soldiers instances of men who are facing the hard times with the same pluck and determination that they exhibited during the Great War,” writes a correspondent of the “\\ aikato Times.” “In almost every case their farms and stock look well, and by hard work and good management they are confident that they are going to make a success. By the help or a little extra manure, selecting better cows, and a favorable season, their returns will, they hope, when a final rettlement is made, be as good as they were last year. Several of them, now that they have become firmly settled, are specialising in pigs, and in a thoroughly businesslike, practical way has succeeded in establishing a really first-class stud of pedigree pigs, including Berkshire*!, medium, Yorkshires and Taimvorths. Around the pig enclosures, so as to save labor in handling, there are grown really splendid fields of mangolds, and of artichokes, and by using their skim milk, ail feed required is grown on the place.”

The dairy farmer who controls a herd of 300-pound butter-fat cows doese not complain of long hours or poor pay. He is past the complaining stage. A group of 23 farmers in the Waikato, milaing o\er 1500 cows, are this year putting up a record of over 300 pounds per cow. These farmers have achieved their objective in less than five years.

Good dairy cows are important, but more important is the' man who looks after, them and feeds them according to their capabilities. “Life. liberty .and the pursuit ot happiness” pretty well sums up the ambitions ol : most people. Some find their happiness in one thing, others in another; but the greatest happiness, we believe, is found by tiie man who does not expect to take out of life anything that he does not put into it. In coiuparision with the Yew Zealand herd-test figures, Victorian Friesian cattle evidently can hold their own in butter-fat production, and an interesting opinion on the type of Victorian cattle is furnished by Mr Alfred E. Dahlenburg, of William East, in the Nhil! district. Mr Dahlenburg spent several years in New Zealand, and a close knowledge of many prominent Friesian studs there, including the famous Longbeac-li herd, in which many .very good producing and nice type cattle were bred. Recently Mr. Dahlenburg was in want of a bull for his Friesian herd at Nhill, and bought a two-year-old from Messrs. E. L. Smith and Sons, of Woodend, without having seen the animal. Now that it has arived on his farm he lias written expressing his appreciation of its type, saying that, in iiis experience in New Zealand, he had never seen a bull that pleased hint better, and- that an animal of its quality would bring big money in New Zealand. As the dam of Mr Dahlenburg’s purchase has given 6491 b. of butter-fat in 273 days at three year old, and has won reserve champion honours at the Melbourne Royal Show on type, an<T the young bull is also a Royal prize-winner, the appreciation of its owner has good foundation. It is somewhat strange in view of the experiences of New Zealand, that proposals have been put forward in Ireland to bring the dairying industry there under (control. The proposals have been subjected to adverse criticism. and the hint has been given to Irish producing interests that any at- 1 tempt to bring about marketing control, particularly in respect to pricefixing of butter, would meet with strong opposition in the British trade. Traders’ associations both in Ireland and England have urged leaders of the Irish dairying industry to refrain from adopting measures designed to re- , strict offerings and to determine prices in the interests of the producers gen- , erally. To do so would perhaps destroy the goodwill at present existing in the trade in Irish butter.

The draft of people from country to town is noted in most countries. It is said by a writer on Paris to he worse in France than practically any other country. He says: Paris is still undergoing many and far-reaching changes. The old fortifications are being rapidly demolished, because it is obvious that they are useless as defences against modern artillery. The suburbs sprawl far beyond the limits »f the historic Paris; and, as the present population is more than double what it was at the time of the armistice, it is evident that tlie lodging crisis will have to he solved by further expansions. The drift of the country population to the capital, so notable in many other countries, is more intense in France than elsewhere, because of the great area which was devastated during the war.

In Gilsland, near the Northumberland border, are lonely farmhouses, where the kitchen fires, fed slowly with turf or peat, have not been allowed to go out for at least 200 years.