ENGLISH V. NEW ZEALAND FARMING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVII, Issue 5759, 3 May 1880, Page 6

ENGLISH V. NEW ZEALAND FARMING.

In nearly all agricultural districts there are complaints—more or leas numerous—that farming does not pay. For the benefit o£ those who are disposed to grumble at their lot, I clip the following from an Australian paper : —" At an agricultural meeting in Essex the other day, one of the speakers, a farmer, read the following abstract of expenditure during the past year in cannection with a farm of 210 acres in gross, but only 195 net, ia Great CoggeahallTithe, paid to the lay impropriator, £102 12s 6 J ; ditto, to the vicar, £29 16s 2d; poor rate, £40 53 lOd ; sanitary rate, £11 lis 3d ; surveyor's rate, £7 2s ; education, £4; and voluntary church rate, £2 2s ; which gave a total of £197 9s 6d as outgoings, without including rent. He asked how they were likely to beat the foreigner when they were at such an expense as that ? The correspondent who forwarded us these particulars says; 'If our farmers hero had to pay such taxes, would they not cry out V We are decidedly of opinion that they would. Why, one of the items would be provocative of a wail. Australian farmers in the matter of taxation are almost as free as air, but still somehow they do not get on much belter than the English cultivator. Perhaps it is that the more a man pays, the more he works." It is a difficult problem to solve, how any farmer is able to stand under the heavy burden of all the above taxes, pay a high rent into the bargain, and yet keep in a solvent state. Fortunately, the taxes here are very light, or I am afraid a good many would sink under the load. Whether the insinuation that the more a man pays, the more he works, will explain matters, I will leave other to determine. It may be added that the crops in the Auckland province during the last season have been below the average. As a consequence farming may not have been a very payiog business. In the Middle Island, however, there seems to have been a splendid season, and remarkable crops. This is what the Country Journal says:—"The harvest of 1880 may now be said to be secured, and has proved one of the moat bountiful yet experienced in the colony, 70 bushels of barley per acre has been threshed in numerous instances, and from 50 to 100 bushels of oats, 60 bushels of wheat is quite a common thing. Mr. Charles Watson, who farms a portion of the Maori Run at Woodend, has a crop of beans estimated to yield 95 bushels per acre. Potatoes also are an abundant crop, promising 8 to 15 tons per aero. It is estimated that the "average for the Middle Island will approach 30 bushels per acre." It is to be hoped that when the agricultural returns are pablished, this estimate will be found correct. So abundant is the crop of oats throughout the colony, especially in the South, that in the absence of a market for them, it has been suggested that the grain should be subject to hydraulic pressure to such an extent as to turn out an article which might be packed similar to oil-cake. The market in England for genuine cattlefood is always a good one, and the idea is quite worthy the attention of those most interested in the matter.