PRINCE AS A FARMER

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 24 July 1935, Page 8

PRINCE AS A FARMER

Secret of His Success is Strict Commercial Basis CAREFUL STUDY OF MARKETS PROFITABLE EXPERIMENTS (From Our Own Correspondent—By Air Mail.) LONDON, July 6. The Prince of Wales told an audience of English farmers the other day that he knew a good deal of the difficulties of a farmer’s life. He spoke from first-hand knowledge. He is a practical farmer himself, and he knows how to make farming pay.

At Stoke Climsland, in Cornwall, the (Prince runs the 330-acre Homo Farm, where he breeds Devon and Aberdeen Angus cattle, raises pigs and poultry, and lias a flock of sheep. Everything on the Prince’s farm is done" with an eye to perfection. His cows and (bulls ate among the finest m the country. They have won prizes at nearly every agricultural show. But the farm is*run on a strictly commercial basis, and every transaction is recorded, with a profit or loss account, so that the Prince knows exactly whether he is making or losing money on the venture. He rarely loses. Some less successful farmers grumble that the Prince has plenty of capital to use. But there is another reason. He makes it his business to study his markets. He has arranged scores of trips for farmer-tenants on his estates to visit the London stores to see what the public are buying. He has visited Covent Garden market m the early morning rush hours to study market requirements. Two years ago the Prince decided to plant fruit and early spring flowers at Stoke Climsland. He put five acres under strawberries and raspberries, and had one hundred thousand daffodil bulbs planted. Already the experiment is proving profitable, and scores of other farmers in the West Country are following the Prince’s example. On one part of the Duchy estate, mut planting has enabled twenty extra men to be employed on eleven acres.. The Prince studies farming methods when he is abroad and does not hestitate to tell British farmers what lie has seen. The Prince still has the famous E.'L . ranch in Alberta, Canada, where ne breeds horses and cattle. Every wee v detailed reports are sent to him from the ranch.