PARCHED DESERT

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 275, 20 October 1937, Page 8

PARCHED DESERT

FORMER WHEAT BELT.

RUIN IN CANADA. “What used to be one of the greatest wheat belts in North America • Saskatchewan and Alberta- is nothing but a parched desert. This is due to discing instead of ploughing, and to the mere scratching of a rich surface soil until it has been exhausted, the land is just simply a ruin, due to baa farming methods, and it is reported that 70,000 settlers have left their properties.” , , This was the word picture drawn tor a “Standard” reporter to-day by JYLr R. Tanner, of Karere, who has just returned from a visit to Canada and the United States, when comparing farming practice in the former with the agricultural efficiency reached m the latter. , , Thousands of acres of what was formerly good land had been turned into dust by a seven years’ drought in the Calgary, Moosejaw and Saskatchewan areas, added Mr Tanner, mainly due to lack of attention to irrigation and neglect to plant trees, of which there were none to be seen for thousands of acres. The moisture level in the soil had gradually sunk down to seven feet below the surface, where there was no capillary attraction. Typical or the farming methods which had led to this was the fact that combines and expensive harvest machinery had been left lying unprotected from the weather for years, and that he had not seen a farm house in Saskatchewan that had been painted since it was built. Land reputed to have been the finest in the area had been ruined through bad cultivation, but might eventually be brought back by proper methods and with an adequate supply of moisture. Realising this, speculator's had been buying up the desolated areas with the intention of holding them until the situation improved. Conditions were, however, very different in Manitoba, where there had been more rain and some wonderful yields. A CONTRAST. By contrast, said Mr Tanner, he found the Armstrong Valley, in British Columbia, into which the penniless farmers from the ruined wheat States were Rocking, a beautifully fertile area, growing magnificent cereal crops, one property of t>4o acres yielding 55 bushels an acre. There were 4000 acres of apple trees in full bearing, and producing the small type of fruit required for the American markets. Nebraska and other farming areas in the United States were very prosperous looking, and one could travel for ten hours on end past nothing but fields of Indian corn and lucerne grown to provide feed ’’for pigs and cattle. The country was well irrigated, and dotted with thousands of haystacks. “We did not taste one bit of bad butter in America, where it was equal to the best in New Zealand,” said Mr Tanner, while the beef stock was as good as any in this country. The chief dairying cows were of the Friesian breed. Steel's were not allowed to reach the stage of bullocks, but were killed not later than two and a-half years old, being fattened off in enclosures where they were fed with hay and water. Owing to the failure of imported grasses in the very light soil of the United States, and the insufficiency of moisture, alfalfa was universally grown for feed. Giving splendid results in the summer, a new type of clover was now being introduced. Magnificent stud Ayrshire cattle, and high producers, were seen by the visitor, who said he was impressed by the dairying methods in the United States. He had visited the State Fair at Sacramento, a wonderful exhibition of machinery and stock attended by up to 96,000 people on every one of ten days, including Sundays. America appeared to be drawing its best breeding stock from the Argentine, instead of England. Money was no object to them in the purchase of pedigree stock, and the Polled Herefords were in a state of perfection. In British Columbia, Mr Tanner added, he had viewed the best Hereford bull he had ever seen.