CANTERBURY FARMING

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6852, 6 March 1929, Page 10

CANTERBURY FARMING

A Visitor Impressed It has taken less than a week — though a very “crammed” one as far as travelling is concerned—to impress on a notabie visitor the wealth of New Zealand's rural resources. The visitor in question is Mr. Cyrus McMormick, one of the principals of the International Harvester Co., of America, and a grandson of the inventor of the binder bearing that name and which, when it. was invented in 1833, was one of the main factors in revolutionising harvest methods. Though an American, Air. McCormick finished his education at Oxford, and there is a very attractive Anglo-Saxon and cosmopolitan colouring to his fresh and nustcrcotyped views. He arrived at Christchurch on Saturday last and in the interim has been motored over most of the agricultural lands of the province. Our Eig Wheat Yields.. To an interviewer, who saw him prior to leaving for Wellington en route to Australia, Air. McCormick expressed himself enthusiastically regarding the richness of Canterbury’s agricultural lands and the great possibilities in front of tho country generally.

He considers this province wonderfully endowed, and speaking with an intimate knowledge of American, Canadian, Argentine, and Continental farm lands, he gives the palm to New Zea-

land. “I have often heard of your 70 bushels to the acre yields of wheat, and smiled,” he said, “but ihis last few days I have seen them being threshed.’”

The four features that stood out in

tho visitor’s impressions were:—(l) The tremendous yields of wheat; (2) the outstanding character of the men and women he ha'd met on tho land;

(3) the substantial character of the rural homes compared with those of America and Canada; and (4) the beauty and charm of the country. “You produce from eight to ten million bushels of wheat by a population of about If millions, or not far short of 10 bushels per head. If we did that in America we would be raising over a billion bushels annually,” he remarked. “And I must say, ’ ho added, “that you have here the most outstanding bunch of Anglo-Saxons that I have met in any country.” Up-to-date Machinery. Air. McCormick considered that Canterbury was well up to date in the uso Of modern agricultural implements, although naturally the province could scarcely compete with' America in the variety of them. In tho States they were always trying out something new. Farmers there appeared to be well forward in the use of tractors, as they were to be seen from one end of the province to the other. To-day tho tractor was produced with as vigilant an eye on tho element of human error as was the highest grade motor-car. The visitor said that the object of his trip hero and to Australia was to see conditions first hand. Bower on the farm should be looked at from the factory viewpoint with tho object of equipping the farm equally efficiently in order to reduco costs and increase production. That was the main ideal that lay before implement ' manufacturers.

Mr. AlcCormick is accompanied by his wife, who expressed herself as particularly charmed with the beauty and evident prosperity of tho country. “We will be coming back,” she remarked, “but it will be in the spring, when the country will be at its best.”