SUCCESSFUL FARMING.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 996, 3 April 1891, Page 20

SUCCESSFUL FARMING.

Farming, to be a financial success, requires the farmer to have something more than the rule of thumb experience. Like any other business, it requires not only special training, but what is more useful, special aptitude for the work. As in other trades it sometimes happens that a man not necessarily trained to the business becomes a successful farmer because he happens to possess keen powers of observation and a studious mind. A case to illustrate this has lately occurred in one of the sister colonies. A prize was offered for the best conducted farm in the district. That prize was awarded to a man who bad been for many years of his life a mechanic. He had cultivated a fair-sized garden in his leisure time. He had studied the value of soils, manure, and careful cultivation. He took up a farm in the same district in which he had lived for some years, and to-day is the most successful farmer of the whole country side. There is no secret in his success. It is simply due to close observance and unremitting care. He found that his district was a dry one, and the nonsuccess of the leading crops was due to an insufficiency of moisture. He did not dream of any system of irrigation. It was out of his power, for two reasons, the presence of sufficient water and the lack of the necessary capital to apply it. He thought over the matter and came to the conclusion that he must force nature to supply him with what his crops wanted. In the first place he ploughed his land as deeply as he could with a strong plough and a team of six horses. He turned up a furrow of some eight or nine inches in depth. This he reduced to as fine a tilth as possible, acting upon the theory that well woi'ked free soil would not cake or harden in the dry seasons but allow the dew and whatever moisture which fell to sink well into the ground and thus prevent the rapid evaporation in dry weather. The next point was to sow as early in the season as possible, while there was a/chance of early rains giving the seeds a good start. He took the precaution also to sow deeply, so that the tender rootlets would not have to wander far in search of moisture. The result of this work was that although his district w as extraordinarily dry this last season he had the heaviest crops for many miles round. He farmed what is known as ‘ close and clean.’ He left no waste ground, and although he only possessed one hundred acres, he makes more per annum from that area than his neigh-

bours do with double that amount of land.

What this man lias done may be useful hints to any of our readers who reside in dry districts. Anyway, his plan is well worth trying.