FARM LABOUR

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 50, Issue 3056, 31 March 1941, Page 6

FARM LABOUR

SHORTAGE IN WAIKATO CITY COUPLE DISILLUSIONED A farmer appellant to the No. 2 Armed Forces Appeal Board at Huntly recently said he had endeavoured to obtain labour to replace him on the farm. He had actually induced a married couple from the city, with no previous experience of dairy farming, but with a desire to learn, to come and undertake the duties. They “stuck it,” he said, for three months, and then returned to the city very much disillusioned with farm life.

Meantime appellant had made arrangements to render military service, but he had had to re-arrange matters. He and his brother were now milking the herd of 110 1 cows. The board granted a sine die adjournment. Daughters Do Haymaking

Another farmer asking for exemption from military service for his son, said that the latter was very essential on the farm. Two daughters also helped, one of them driving a tractor quite frequently'. The daughters had, earlier in the season, been responsible for getting in 400 bales of hay. . • ■

The father told the Board of another occasion when the electric power supply failed, and the family milked the herd of 160 cows by hand, the job finishing at 10.30 p.m. He told the Board that a fair statement of the hours worked on the farm by the family was from 4 a.m. to 7 p.m. The Board, impressed with the sincerity of appellant and the hard work being done on the farm, granted a sine die adjournment of the case.