The FARM

North Canterbury Gazette, Volume I, Issue 7, 23 September 1932, Page 10

The FARM

TALKS WITH FARMERS. A RURAL SURVEY. (WRITTEN FOB THE " NOBTH CANTERBURY GAZETTE") [By Sundowns®.] VII. CLEANING UP.

.\yHEN I read in the 11 Gazette ” last week that Mr. L. R. C. Macfarlane wants me to trim my hedges and paint my gates, clean out my ditches, and comb out my horses’ tails, I knew that Nemesis had overtaken me. Forty years ago I helped to tie a tin to a horse’s tail, which —I mean the horse —raced till it had no real tail left (the tying having been securely done), jumped over a gate without clearing it, and landed broadside in a ditch without strength or elbow-room to get out. And when that rampage was over we called on a short-sighted hedgecutter, called Hughie, and while one of us diverted him with innocent praise of his skill the others dropped metal into the gorse a few feet ahead of his slasher for the pleasure of hearing him swear.

The Good Old Days. I mention these things to show how innocent the world was in the good old days, when we began school with prayers and never, once we had been caught, smoked or played the wag or forgot the respect due to our elders. But it is hard, when I would now so willingly forget, to be dragged back to the slump of 1890, made to do penance for old Hughie’s hedge-knife, and to expose my own to the reddest young rebel in the district who happens to wish to make fire without matches. For I have not the slighest hope of being able to swear like old Hughie. Though he had forgotten more words when I knew him than I will ever know, he could still at sixty make a bullock-driver sound like a Sundayschool teacher.

\ A Vicious Circle. So it comes roughly to this. Hughie cut hedges and swore—and afterwards, I am bound to add, fled from his creditors. We have already fled from our creditors, and now Mr. L. R. C. Macfarlane is going to make us cut hedges without swearing. Therefore we move in circles and get no forrader. Because it is quite hopeless to talk about resisting Mr. Macfarlane. No farmer can let his hedges grow unless all his neighbours let theirs grow, and this is now impossible. Some one is bound to listen to the still small voice, and if one does all will have to. I have known only one man absolutely indifferent to the influence of public opinion,. who let fruit, flowers, and feathers fight*for their lives against weeds; and he was an artist and lived in town. A second man almost qualified, but felt a little embarrassed under the impudent eyes of passers and grew a ten-foot hedge. The rest of us are weaklings, and as surely as some one else prunes bis gooseberry bushes we prune our own, or onr whiskers, or our dogs’ tails. I challenge any owner of a Smithfield to let the tail grow if the Lord starts one, and any breeder of Clydesdales to have their tails banged.

Slaves and Dumb Dogs. We have neither the strength nor the imagination to do things like that, and Mr. Macfarlane knows that we haven’t. We are slaves, sheep, dumb dogs—anything anyone likes to call us —and all the A. and P. Associations have to do to clean up Canterbury is to clean up one farm here and there. If they will make my farm all that it ought to be to look at—gates all standing, horses all shining, ditches all running, and pigs all too proud to root —I will undertake that no neighbour for fifty miles will sleep another day under the slump if there is power in my old rattle-trap to wake him. Gresham’s Law. Some may sleep on (if they are far enough from the road) but they will not muddle on unless Sir Thos. Gresham lied to Queen Elizabeth when he told her that bad money drives out good. Where the good money goes Sir Thomas did not say—to Queen Elizabeth it was not necessary—but he explained why it goes, and the same spirit of covetousness reverses the law when you convert cash into cattle. If we could slip our Corriedales and best Shorthorns into our pockets, and sell them secretly to the Basutos at an enormotts profit, we would exhibit only the scrubs and the runts. But we can’t do that. Covetousness works openly with farmers, even when they gamble on the markets, and the law of stock-breeding therefore is that good animals drive out bad. , You can’t have a bag of bones in

FARM NOTES. A New Book. Messrs. Whitcombe and Tombs have sent me for review a_ copy of q new edition of Sir A. D. Hall’s “The Soil,” probably the most important agricultural book published during the lastyear or two. The present is the fourth edition of this work, and has been revised and enlarged bv the addition of matter that has been much studied in' recent years. If a farmer will buy any book about the soil this, from a fonner Director of the Rothamsted Agricultural College, England, is the one most strongly recommended. * * * * A Good Soil. Sir A. D. Hall states: “The soils which shew the greatest fertility are as a rule soils laid down by water or wind, uniform and fine-grained in texture, but with particles coarser than clay predominating, so that water moves up freely through them by capillarity, and at the same time air and rain water percolate freely through them. As a rule they contain fin appreciable amount of organic matter at all depths. In Britain they have been deposited from running water, and represent silt from which both the coarsest sand and the finest day have been sifted, and mixed at all depths with a- certain amount of vegetable debris.”

* * * * Acid Soils. He also emphasises the point that if one sees much sorrel, or chrysanthemum daisies growing in his land, or a carpet of peat-like mosses on the surface he may be sure the soil is acid, and is lacking in lime: 11 It is known that ordinary changes or maturing of soil is due to countless bacteria, but these stop their action and die out if a soil becomes acid, and moulds and fungus take their place, as in the wellknown k finger and toe ’ disease of turnips and swedes, which is cured by liming. Repeated application of ammonia sulphate make the soil acid and finally sterile, as the ammonia ceases to be changed into nitrate for the use of the plants. Fungi seems able to withdraw the ammonia and set free the acid from ammonic sulphate. But perhaps the most serious trouble of acid soils under regular cropping is their inability to make use of superphosphate, as this fertiliser requires lime in order to become the compound, called reverted phosphate, which plants can use.”

* * * * Crown as Mortgagee. Councils are in a very unsatisfactory position, and also a very queer one, with regard to their power to collect rates from landowners mortgaged to the Crown, for example to the State Advances Office. The Court of Appeal labout a year ago decided - that the Crown would be liable for such general as were owing on a property prior to the date of mortgage, but not for succeeding rates, and decided • also that the Crown would be liable for all special rate 9. The practical result is that if a mortgagor is lucky enough to be under the State Advances he need pay no rates, and his land cannot be sold for the payment of such. This glaring anomaly has often been brought before the Prime Minister, but fruitlessly, as the reply has always been that the Advances Department is not out to make a profit, that its rate of interest is low, and it cannot afford to pay the mortgagor’s rates. One would think it would be only in Queer Street that a man, if lucky enough to get under the Advances Department, would be further rewarded by being let off his rates. —J.R.W.

POISONED PIGEONS. STRANGE ACCIDENT AT BROOKLANDS. Those who wonder whether poisoned grain really poisons would not wonder any longer if they had been at Mr C. Leech’s home, Brooklands, on Saturday evening. When Mr Leech went out to give his pigeons their evening meal he found nearly a hundred birds dead or dying—some on the floor of the cote, and some on the ground outside. Later some of the dead birds were jeaten by cats, which however left the crops untouched, but unfortunately exposed to the fowls. In the end Mr Leech lost several fowls as well as ninety odd pigeons. the front paddock when neighbours on either side have fat and sleekness; or, if you can help it, barb-wire gates when they have painted rails. Mr. Macfarlane has been studying psychology, and loafing and chickenheartedness must cease.

FRUITGROWERS. ANNUAL CONFERENCE IN WELLINGTON.

The sixteenth, annual conference of the New Zealand Fruitgrowers’ Federation was held this week in Wellington. Addresses were given by the Right Hon. J. G. Coates, and the Hon. C. E. Macmillan, and also by Mr Holland, leader of the Opposition, Mr. H, Atmore, Nelson, and Mr. E. F. Healy, Wairau. Annual Report. The annual report stated that the position was eminently satisfactory in view of all the circumstances. The turnover in trading had almost reached the figures of the previous twelve months. A further £SOO had been made available to assist the Dominion mark scheme in the local market and 1 £IOOO had been set aside to establish an insurance reserve. The net profit for the period was £3192, which was slightly more than the figure for the previous twelve months, and overhead expenses had been reduced. Mr. A. M. Robertson, vice-president, who took the chair in the absence of Mr. Brasch through illness, read the President’s address.

Ottawa Agreements. The changes in the tariff were explained by Mr. Coates. New Zealand obtained a tariff of 4/6 a cwt, guaranteed for five years, in place of the 10 per cent, preference due to expire in November. The change from ad valorem to specific would mean that the duty would fall especially heavy on cheap, low grade fruit, and have the effect of guarding against cheap dumped apples and be good for New Zealand. He also referred to the case for seasonal marketing and said he thought it a sound proposition. He thought he could advise people that there was a future for New Zealand’s fruit industry. He advised those connected with it to maintain quality.