FARMING AND COMMERCIAL

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIX, Issue 103, 1 April 1929, Page 5

FARMING AND COMMERCIAL

“FARMER'S PARADISE."

KENYA COLONY’S CLAIMS. From a purely agricultural point of view —that is, for soil fertility and for climatic conditions • favourable for yields—there can be no doubt whatsoever that Kenya is nothing less than a farmer’s paradise. So says a Home agricultural paper. Not only does it offer conditions suitable for the successful cultivation of an extremely wide range of crops —from coffee, tea, sisal and tropical fruits to maize, wheat, lucerne and even deciduous fruit —-but the returns, even , under inefficient methods of cultivation, are something which many a South African farmer will feel diffident in accepting without actually seeing them. They are perfectly astounding. A writer in the South African Farmer’s Weekly says he has seen maize yields of 331 bags per acre' on unfertilised land in the Ronga district; and has walked through maize fields whose lower cobs he could not reach, despite the fact that he is 6ft 2in in his socks. Yields of over 101 bags to the acre have been often secured for wheat over comparatively large acreages, and during the past season, in the Molo district, at an altitude between 8000 and 9000 feet, the enormous acreages of wheat —many of which were solid blocks of 400 to 600 acres —standing uniform 6ft to Bft in height with a breeze rippling over them, was an inspiring and magnificent sight to see. Established lucerne near Lake Naivasha yields up to twelve cuttings per annum without irrigation; coffee, in the right soil, produces from half a ton to a ton per acre; tea, which is still in its initial stages at Kericho, shows tremendous promise; sugar round about Kisumu is doing excellentlv: the most marvellous pineapples (the only tropical fruit grown systematically) produced in the Ruiru district are the sweetest and largest ever tasted; and the few apples grown on farms on the Kinankop, at an altitude exceeding 9000 feet, are of good flavour, large and crisp. Rape, roots, pumpkins, and the hay grasses that South African farmers are at such pains in producing are in , the nature of a sealed book, no need for them having yet arisen. In many districts, merely clearing forest or by ploughing the land roughly once, beautiful and most nutritious Kikuyu grass pastures of very high-carrying capacity are at once established. I Kenya is a land to go and visit after battling through a few Free State droughts!

STOCK DISEASES. Although the native type is abundant, stock is mostly still at a discount, the deterrent so far being the diseases which are responsible for very heavy losses. The worst of these is East Coast fever, followed by pleuro- ' pneumonia, rinderpest, gall-sickness (of a less virulent type than that prevailing in South Africa, it seems), redwater lymph (in horses), swine fever, the various diseases, and particularly worm infections to which sheep are subject, Uasin Gishu skin disease (a horrible cattle disease), not very prevalent, however) and paratyphoid, white scours, etc., which take a very heavy toll amongst all calves, particularly those that are better bred. Farms are still nearly all unfenced, and fencing material is still very expensive, while the stock trading by .Arabs and natives, which is still fairly general, means that disease can be introduced into a herd even where dipping and hand-dressing are carried out conscientiously—a great rarity in Kenya in actual practice. Yet Kenya farmers are not getting rich at actual farming, and it is not very surprising, for although the great majority of settlers are extremely nice people to meet socially, they are either all ex-soldiers or ex-naval men, who mostly take great pride in the,; fact, and who say quite frankly that' they are no farmers, apparently rather relishing the idea that they never intend becoming good farmers. It is a matter ‘of some importance, for it provides the key to the psychology of the Kenya farmer. —Christchurch Press.

WHEAT HARVESTING. PRIMITIVE AND MODERN METHODS. Throughout the world, says the report of the British Ministry of Agriculture on the growing and marketing of wheat and other cereal crops, there are wide variations in the method of harvesting and preparing grain for market. In India, for example, the crop is mostly cut by hand. It is commonly threshed by means of the flail or trodden out by oxen on the floor of the barn. The grain is generally winnowed by wind, and if the crop is held on the farm before sale it is stored, in the form of grain, usually in an earthen pit. However suitable they may be in relation to native agricultural and economic conditions, the methods in vogue in India are primitive and backward in the extreme as compared with those in England, but the methods there, however suitable they may be to Home conditions, can be considered as primitive compared with the system prevailing in the large wheat-growing areas of North America, for example. There, especially in the drier regions of the West, the process of stacking is to a great extent eliminated, and the harvesting and threshing of the crop ; instead of being two distinct operations, as in England, are combined in one. Even this combined operation has recently been cheapened and simplified, with the result that the crop is placed more easily and quickly on the market than before.

The United States Labour Monthly Review has given a summary of the progress made in this direction in the United States where harvesting and threshing used to be the biggest problem connected with wheat-growing. At one time, so much labour and, in addition, such expensive equipment were required that no ordinary farmer could afford to own a set and man it. The labour and equipment were therefore hired from a travelling thresherman or hired and owned by several farmers in partnership. The typical set of equipment consisted of three headers, nine waggons, one engine and thresher, etc., along with 30 or 35 men and 60 or 70 horses. With this, it was possible rto do from 75 to 90 acres per dav. The next step was the 18-foot combined harvester and thresher drawn by a tractor or 33 horses manned by five men, and doing perhaps 30 acres per day. The latest development is a 12-foot combined harvester and thresher run by a tractor, with two or three men, doing 15 acres per day, and so inexpensive to buy that every farmer can possess one. It is pointed out that, in this way, two men can hope to harvest unaided as much wheat as they can possibly seed. After threshing, a farm waggon conveys the grain in bulk to the local elevator, where the operator samples each load and the grain is there allotted its marlet grada.

WHEAT GRUWING.

THREATENED REDUCTION OF DUTIES. DECISION OF FARMERS’ UNION. CHRISTCHURCH, March 30. “That any reduction in the portection afforded to wheat-growers by altering the duties on wheat and flour is unfair and inequitable, inasmuch as the present tariff provides the only means of working our arable lands to capacity, and also provides work for large numbers of farm labourers and mill hands at fair wages, who would j otherwise have to be provided for by Government employment; that other farmers’ organisations in the South Island and also the. Chambers of Commerce, bo invited to co-operate in the direction of countering the porpaganda now being circulated in the North Island for the purpose of reducing wheat and flour duties; that the provincial executives in Canterbury and Otago be asked to take up the matter.” The above resolution, moved by Mr J. D. Hall, was carried at a meeting of the North Canterbury executive of the Farmers’ Union, the short discussion concerning it being taken in committee.

GOVERNMENT’S ATTITUDE. STATEMENT BY A- MINISTER. Taking- advantage of the presence of the Minister for Internal Affairs (Hon. Mr de la Perrelle) at the opening of the Methven A. and P. Show, Mr D. Jones, member for Mid-Canterbury, said that everybody in his electorate —the greatest wheat-growing area in New Zealand—was very interested indeed about’ what was going to be the new Government’s attitdue towards the wheat industry. “We grow by far the greater portion of the Dominion’s wheat and we want to be allowed to continue to grow it.” he said amidst applause. He would like the Minister to take note of the huge piles of wheat in the paddocks as he passed between Methven and Christchurch. These represented an enormous amount of labour and he knew of no other industry providing so much labour as wheat, right from the time the ground was prepared till the wheat became bread. If the Government spent twenty mililons in land settlement, and allowed the wheat industry to go out, New Zealand would be poorer by much more than twenty millions. “We are prepared to go on growing our 250,000 to 300,000 acres of wheat for the Dominion,” he added. “All we want is fair play, but we want to see that we get that.” (Applause.) “The Government will do nothing to harm the wheat industry in this country,” said Mr do la Perrelle later.

FARM TRAINING. SCHEME FOR BOYS. FARMERS’ UNION SUPPORT. CHRISTCHURCH, March 30. The initial steps to inaugurate a scheme of apprenticing boys to farmers are to be taken in the very near future. To a meeting of the North Canterbury executive of the Farmers’ Union Mr R. T. Bailey, officer in charge of the Labour Department at Christchurch, outlined the scheme, which is similar to the Flock House work, and the members of, the union assured him of their support. Mr Bailey said that the Minister for Labour was very anxious to get boys to take up farming pursuits, and it was very necessary to get the sympathy of farmers. The scheme would follow the lines of the Flock House scheme, the boys being indentured to the farmers. It was proposed that the secretary for Labour, Mr F. Rowley, should meet the farmers and secure their views on the question. In reply to Mr J. D. Hall, Mr Bailey said that Cabinet was very anxious to get the scheme under way. It would help to solve the unemployment problem.

Mr D. J. Hawke said that he had taken boys from the receiving homes, and his experience was that if boys were encouraged in some particular line they generally made a success of it. He suggested that Mr Bailey or Mr Rowley should explain the scheme to the annual meeting of branches and to this Mr Bailey agreed. Mr Hawke added that the scheme was certainly on the right lines, and they shpuld appoint a sub-committee to confer with the Labour Department. The chairman, Mr R. T. McMillan, stated that the Canterbury Chamber of Commerce was working on similar lines.

Mr Hall: Do you think all this apprenticing is necessary p The chairman: A year is all right, but three years wolud be too long. T° a meeting .of the Canterbury Sheepowners’ Union the Marlborough aheepowners’ Union wroe tregarding the suggested scheme for apprentices'll? of boys on farms, and stating that it strongly opposed any form of apprenticeship for boys on farms with set regulations and conditions of pay if supervised or controlled in any way by a Government department. It was generally agreed that it was desirable to explore every method of assisting in tlie absorption of as large a number of boys as possible on farms, but that apprenticeship contracts should be arranged only on an individual basis. Several letters were received from various parts of the Dominion dealing with the same matter and expressing similar views to those expressed by the Marlborough Sheepowners’ Union whose letter was received and the views expressed therein fully endorsed. FRENCH WHEAT TARIFFS* (Australian Press Association.) PARIS, March 29. The semi-official journal the Temps, sharply criticises the projected efforts to increase the tariff on wheat from 35 francs per quintal to 43 francs, and, perhaps, 50. The newspaper asserts that the aid the farmer will derive from the proposed measure is dubious, in view of the quaintity of 6tocks in warehouses and the hard winter. The paper adds: “The sole effect would be an added burden to the consumer of 250 million francs, and perhaps more.”

RUSSIAN ORDER. FOR BRITISH MACHINERY. (Australian Press Association.) MOSCOW, March 30. In connection with tho tour of British industrialists, an order for £350,000 worth of textile machinery has been placed with an Oldham firm.