NEW ZEALAND FARMING

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19717, 17 August 1927, Page 12

NEW ZEALAND FARMING

INTEREST OF, AMERICANS.

LOOKING FOR NEW FIELDS.

EXPERT MAKING INQUIRIES

" Canada, Australia, Now Zealand and the United States have much, the same problems to solve. Wte share a common point of view, and when I speak-to the farmers of your Dominion I feel I ain talking to my own American people." This view was expressed yesterday by Dr. E. V Wilcox, a staff writer on the Country Gentleman, a Washington, United States, publication. Mr. Wilcox is to make a tour of New Zealand, Australia and Africa, during which be will stilly agriculture and industry. " Many of the readers of the journal T represent believe there are other Englishspeaking countries with developmental possibilities, to which they would like to emigrate, where, so to speak, they could get in on the ground floor as pioneers," said Dr. Wilcox. " That is the AngloSaxon spirit, which imbued the pioneers of New Zealand and Australia." There were, he said, settlers in the ' Unite.! States, who, feeling themselves "crowded" under latter-day conditions, yearned for the vista of a wider horizon, the sense of actually building a young country, and seeing in the more finished product tangible evidence of their labour.

" South America has great areas of undeveloped land, but it did not attract such settlers as these," said Dr. Wilson. There was no middle class in the country in South America, merely a vast social chasm between the great runholders and the servile peon. The " family " farmer, taking up 200 to 500 acres, could have no social standing there, but in Au.s tralia and N'ew Zealand it was different, arid to such countries Were the landhungry in America directing attention

Although lie had seen much of New /.eaiand, Dr Wilcox was amazed at the ability of the New Zealand farmer to product buttei and compete in distant world markets, with land at such high values. " It certainly indicates efficient farming," he said. The greatest opportunity awaiting New Zealand in meat export, it appeared to Or Wilcox, lay in the pork industry, as an adjunct to dairyings England offered a great market for pork and bacon. The United States had unsuccessfully attempted to capture it, and had failed because, m spite of expert advice, American farmers refused to give the class of product the Englishman wanted United States bacon was softer and fatter, being largely corn-fed, than the New Zealand article, which more nearly provided the English market requirement. Now that pork could be sent Home frozen, to be cured there in the English fashion, there appeared U. be no real obstacle in the way of development. Canada, New Zea land and Denmark appeared to be the legitimate competitors in the English bacon market.

Wages problems, said Dr. Wilcox, had perplexed the American farmer, as they had done the man on the land m other countries Manufacturers, independent as 'hey were of seasonal conditions, had successfully exploited the theory that the highei the wages paid the grcatei the purchasing power of the working people. That benefited the manufacturer, but it made the cost of farming appliances greater without the produce of the farm itself commanding a. commensurately highei price. " The farmer in America feels things have gone against him, and that he has beer unfairly treated," said Dr. Wilcox.