RURAL LIFE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18693, 26 April 1924, Page 12

RURAL LIFE.

CONDITIONS OP FARMING.

FINANCIAL RETURNS.

[by que special commissioner.]

No. HI.

Life on a farm varies, of course, with the class of farm and the conditions .affecting it; but all farms are interesting whether it be the crude, poorly equipped pioneer holding with its primitive lean-to dwelling and its new roughly cultivated paddocks, or the oldestablished estate with its pedigree stock} its wealth of grass and crops and its modern machinery and appliances, and those who '""ink farm life prosaic and dull simply kn >w nothing of the business. No man finds greater need for versatility than the farmer. Besides all the manifold details of stock and crops he must now-a-days know something of oil engines and electricity, of complicated implements and machinery. He must be something of a chemist as well as a carpenter, a doctor' as well as a blacksmith, an organiser of labour as well as a financier, and most farmers do know something whether it be much or little of these things.

The idea that tho "creator," as he is sometimes called, is an ignorant man can be held only by those who do not know him. Averagely he has a much wider general knowledge than the ordinary city business man and reads more and deeper books than many people who count themselves cultured. I have found many a line judge of literature in dungaree pants and heavy boots, and quip and quotation among the sunbrowned and bearded. The farmer to my mind represents the spirit of the British race reticent, proud, silent, .but not inarticulate; indifferent to public opinion, unpretentious with, that courage and tenacity which is one of our recognised virtures. He has many faults, of course; one of them is suspicion or distrust of other people, which often make him unapproachable by strangers, and breeds strange intense feuds between neighbours. But it must be acknowledged that he has some occasion for district, two-thirds of tho world live on the farmer. Money in Stock.

I have recently spent a pleasant week on a farm, which would be rather difficult to classify. It is new enough to be considered pioneer for I saw its first paddock broken from the virgin scrub, but a few years ago, and even to-day little more than one-third of its total area of nearly three thousand acres lias been cultivated ; to be precise, one thousand acres is in grass or root crop, out of two thousand nme hundred acres, and the ratio of crop to pasture is very small. It is situated in a district, where, until recently, the soil was considered too poor for farming purposes, and yet its thousand acre. of grass carries over 1200 sheep, 190 beef cattle, 73 dairy cows, 14 horses, a number of young stock, and a score or so well-bred pigs. • . There has been considerable controversy as to land values in New Zealand of recent years. This farm, with its fine range of new buildings, is valued at about £8 an acre, and though only one-third of it is productive it yields very substantial revenue. While I was there I saw 140 head of beef cattle, which had been cut out of a mob of 190, put under offer to a dealer. The farmer wanted £1000 for 100 head. There was chaffering. Hie dealer, who was a highly-skilled judge of stock, offered so much for *20, so much for 32, and so much for the balance, which figured out at nearly £9 apiece and he argued that since this price was free from the cost of freight, insurance, commission, which would have to be paid, it was quit© equal to £10 a head. The farmer argued that he could keep them on the paddock of new grass and turnips for a week or two longer and they might be worth £12 a head. Several other "mights" were mentioned: there might be frosts and bad weather which would chock the feed there might be a rise in beef; there might be a fall. I do not know how the deal ended, but it can bo taken for granted that for less than 140 head of cattle £1000 or thereabouts would be received, leaving fifty odd to be sold at a later date.

The Yield of Sheep. Whilst on the subject of financial returns from farming, I may mention that 1 heard on this particular property discussion regarding the returns from sheep. There were over 1200 sheep on the place. The farmer had been using them as a huge mower to clean up his grass paddocks. It was rather interesting to see them shifted about and to see roughage disappear and short, clean pasture left. There were 1000 breeding ewes among them, said the farmer, and they cost him about £ 1 a head. I expect to get about 90 per cent, lambs out of them, and if I can fatten them, the lambs ought to bring in 20s to 25s each, and even as stores they ought to sell at 12s or 14s, and there is the wool from the ewes which should average 10s a fleece, and, of course, when the ewes are fattened, they ought to sell at more than I gave for them. So in these three items alone there is a gross yield of over £3000. There was the driry herd of 70 odd cows of not particularly good quality, but if they gave a return of £10 a head for the year, there would be another item of over £700. It is all very well for business men to decry and belittle farming, but there is money'in ib when well carried out. How else would New Zealand be able to send away over £50,000,000 worth of products over 90 per cont. of which come from the farm, and this besides selling in their own local markets a score or more millions worth of milk, butter, meat, wool, fruit, vegetables, and all the products of the soil without which New Zealanders could not live!

There are vicissitudes in farming. I

came across a case a few days ago. A young man had purchased a farm much above his means in value, and he had to pav two-thirds of his milk cheque in interest on his mortgage. His own onethird during the last month or two was only about £10 a month, and the real ownor of the land advised him to give up such a hopeless, struggle, and go out working for some one else. u I hate giving up," said the voung man. "I wantto show that I can make pood, and I can, make good if I'm given time." " Utter folly," says the business man. Yes, but that "dogged persistant folly which does not know when it is beaten has given us English people victory out of defeat through a thousand years, and made our race master of a world Empire. And as to working for wacesif it were not for the pride of mastership and the desire for' individual freedom, would our rtce have colonised America and Canada, Australia and New Zealand ?