THE RURAL WORLD.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20966, 4 March 1930, Page 4

THE RURAL WORLD.

FARM AND STATION NEWS.

By RrsTictrs

FORTHCOMING SHOWS. March 19. —Lake County. , March 19.—Gore Ram Fair March 27.—Ram and Ewe Fair (Burnside). April 21.—Strath-Taieri. May 31, June 2 t 3,4, and 5. —Winter Show.

Wool Prices.

A correspondent pf the London Daily Mail says there does not seem any reason tor anticipating cheaper wool, though all sections of buyers have set their backs against paying big prices. Serious losses Have again been incurred by the Home trade, and the Continent and the United Mates have had their financial resources seriously drained. Many mills in the .Bradford district closed down for an ex* tended period last Christmas, When spindles and looms are standing for a UCCIv 3.t this tivuo. of the year it 5s only too plain an indication that orders have not been coining in freely.

Dominion Wheat Pool. The Wheat Pool’s initial payout to far-* niers on account of new season’s wheat wiij be of 4s a, bushel, on trucks, for Tuscan, with the usual relative increases for Hunters and Pearl. The payment will be made immediately the wheat is delivered, .principally on account of forward sales having been made, no f.o.b. charges will be deducted from the first payment, as was the case last year. The pool has I 8? _ ena^e d to do this through having sold forward a good deal of its wheat on a basis of 5s 9d a bushel, on trucks, for luscan. In the meantime, no further pay* ment is being made on last year’s pool, as a fair proportion of the 1929 harvest had to be held in store, on account of the sur- ? Knoo C oi?'u n T.^° t j l t^le ! a Fg e carry-over of 1,500,000 bushels in 1928, supplemented by a surplus of a further 250,000 bushels, bringing the total carry-over to 1,750,000. bushels at the end of February, 1930. It is claimed for the : pool that had it not been for its operations this season’s wheat in spite of the short .crop, would have slumped considerably, and the whole carry-over of 1,750,000 bushels would have been in the hands of millers and merchants. Pressure, of new wheat on the market would have forced priees.down to very low levels. Every other wbeat-pro-‘taCl"g country in the world has been affected by the slump in world values, and is having trouble over its wheat crop. As it is, the pool has been -able to stabilise the market. The position, it is said, would ha,ve been infinitely worse had the pool not made shipments involving 210,000 bushels of wheat.

Holding of Wool. The Commonwealth Government has , “ Placed before it a proposal that it should help a scheme for holding off the maiket 200,000 bales of the season’s wool clip, and of a similar quantity of the next season s clip, the object being to improve market values, but nothing is said in regard to the .third season’s clip, tor it is obvious that it may be necessary 1931 Id ° VCr Bome P°rti°n of the clip of 'Commenting on this scheme the Sydney Morning Herald says: —“ The .middleman has a place in the chain from grower to user. If the grower takes action to supplant the middleman, he takes all the risks, the risk of loss should the market lull as well ,as the benefits should the market remain stable or rise. The risks or a falling market are increased when carry-over is definitely known, as it vould be were a’ public organisation -to hojd back an announced fixed quantity, ihe market would know that the bales held, back must c’ome. to sale eventually, and so would buy hand to-mouth. A refusal, too, of allowing sway to the prin- ? su P.P[y a j>d demand—and that is what a withholding of wool from the market would amount to—would encourage an increase in production, forcing thcr . a greater quantity to be held over or, with the increased offerings, a meetmg of the market at the lower price. The 2 5 72 n nnn d nnnn 0r d T yicld in 1924 "’as 1, 720,000,0001 b. In 1928 it wi<s 3 467 SSLOOOIb. That production hag led l he Prices of to-day. Experience teaches that any attempt to control prices • c -, a y ’ unless production is also artificially controlled, leads to disaster,”

Wheat. Canada and the United States arc the principal exporters of wheat, and in both countries efforts have been made on a large sca.e to maintain artificially the price level higher than is warranted by the law of supply and demand. -Mr H. * orman Bathgate, the well-known LiverPwL Kr ? In u es ? ert ’ . f . las issued his estimates of wheat available for world consumption, excluding Russia from both production and consumption figures. Ho gives the following figures in quarters of eight bushels, or 4801 b, as being the surplus available from exporting countries, together with the requirements of the under^— K colmtries - The figures are as SURPLUS FOR EXPORT. . T?s ad A " &S America 18,000,000 South America 21,500,000 B-, 1 l S t-P alla u " ”■ 8,000.000 pa bans, Rumania, etc 4.000 000 India, Eorth Africa, etc. .. 7,000,000 ■ •n, , . - ‘ , 87,500,000 Bi ought forward .. .... 65,000,000 Total available 152,500,000 REQUIREMENTS. £?.H-lP en £ a } Europe 47,000,000 iWw 1 Ises 28,000,000 Aon-European 24,000,000 P°* a L „ 99,000,000 ■ Canv oyer ~ .. .. .. 53,500,000 152,500,000 The visible supply of wheat is more .ni an , t 0 meet world demands. The w heat pobl in Canada and the market Wt™ l . of the United States have state Kht -n 6 U ?eat m , ar] i et t( > its present state. There is no doubt that the CanaP f°°f by , wlthh °lding -heat from the market forced up prices, and so induced increased production, n ot alone in Canada, If Li countries also, with the result that supplies are m abundance—without taking Russia into consideration—and in pre-war days Russia was a prominent exporter of the cereal and supplied a good proportion of Europe’s requirements. . I a l

Aiistraha i S looking to the CommonGovernment for a guarantee of 5s per Lmshel, which it is claimed would enw) „t1 Ke p . r ° c, . uctl ° n ; tut the question is whether it is desirable in the present economic conditions to encourage produotlon - ? n Canada the State Governments the f l srf -J? ~ ome to the assistance of the pools with finance. Canada holds a considerable quantity of the 1929 crop so does the D.S.A., and it is believed that a quantity of the 1928 crop is still in hand. Ihe bulk of the world's surplus thfnevfs- IHt ° ns,, f mer . s ’ diming tlio next six months, for in August North nrefTi* IV,I | . a K aln Be harvesting, and I robaldy a bigger crop tlian last vear. ’iristlin” ‘wiH ' S VC, 7 ■ com T)licatcd ‘ and bristling with uncertainty, duo in the u'ith* l ° i th ° fu , tl 0 c ? orts to interfere ith the laws of supply and demand. Wool Selling Programme. An immediate commencement is to be made with the current wool selling season, and buyers have commenced the \almng of North Island catalogues A combined sale of the Wellington and Wanganui offerings will he held in Wansaniii commencing on March 3, followed sales at Napier and Christchurch Buyers have gone to Wellington to value < aggiegate catalogue of about IS.OOO insisted upon a minimum of 20 000 Valuing began yesterday and will be'continued to-day. 1 hen buyers proceed to Wanganui to value there on Saturday! Selling will begin at Wanganui at 9 a iii on Monday next, when .the Wellington catalogue will b e offered. The Wanganui catalogue follows. When both catalogue* have been dealt with buyers will prm-eed to Napier for valuation.-ami the sa'- of a catalogue of approximately 10,000 bales

Ittttß of Interest to those engaged In agricultural and pastoral nursuita. with a view to their publication in these columns, will bo welcomed! ffhej should be addressed to "Rusticus,” Otago Doily Timeo, Duuedia,

EUROPEAN COMPETITION. It had, however, to be remembered that Britain s h reetrade policy applied not only to us but to every other country in the world, and this put New Zealand in competition with every other producing country hence the importance of a know" ledge of what was happening in those countries, Denmark had been New Zealand s greatest competitor in butter, and the. development in that country was coincident with our own. In 1915 Dentnark s quota represented 43 per cent of Britain s imports, but in 1929 onlv 36 per. cent., going to prove taht any very rapid increase in Danish production was unlikely. As a matter of. fact there was a growing teeling that she had reached “TL p 6“ k pt production. Prom 1913 to 1929 Danish imports into Britain increased by 29 per cent., whereas New Zealand s increase was 420 per cent. Because of the efficiency and the industry of the Danish people they had developed 1* with Britain which they were ■holding most tenaciously against all competitors. Dairying all the year round, thej- were supplying to the market a regular quantity of high-class fresh butter Like ourselves, Denmark had been depending first on the British market, but secondly on the German demand A recent alteration in the German tariff had increased the duty on imported butter from 13s 9d per cwt to 25s per cwt, and. undoubtedly this would result in larger quantities of Danish butter hito Britain and make more difficult the marketing of New Zealand butter Recent figures indicated that exports from Denmark to Germany had decreased by equal to 12,000 boxes weekly during Deceniber all of which was being sent to the British market.

In- pre-war days Siberian butter figured hugely ou the British market, and the quantity was again on the increase. Horn the Baltic States—Latvia, Estonia. I oland. Sweden, and Finland—larger quantities were reaching Britain. Sonic ot the Baltic States were copying New Zealand in their grading system, type of package, and even in the grade stamp, it was worthy .of special note that practically all those countries were huildiim up tariff walls against imported dairy produce. AUSTRALIA AND CANADA. Australia’s_ supplies' to Britain showed great variation m quantity, dependent on the weather. Given n. wet season she was a formidable competitor ihe Australian market was closed to New _ Zealand because of increased tariff, but it was interesting to note that the .Australian Patterson scheme had been responsible for the imposition of n dump, mg duty on Australian butter going into

will be held, beginning at 6 p.m. on March 0, hollowing sales will be: Christchurch, March 10; Dunedin. March 14; Invercargill, March 17; 'WeTlington. March 21, beginning at 4 p.m. -A further Wellington sale has been arranged to be held on April 14. General satisfaction is expressed that the difficulty has been got over, but it is felt that the offering of the Wellington catalogue, followed by that of Wanganui, will represent a heavy quantity of wool for buyers to absorb at practically the one sale at Wanganui. Ineluding Napier, the combined offerings will probably amount to 47,000 bales. Buyer’s Personal View.

A buyer pointed out in Wellington before the settlement was reached that, although 15,000 bales might have been offered in Wellington, it did not follow that the reserves pub upon the wool in the catalogue would be such as to induce business. It was one thing to offer 15,000 bales and quite another to accept Jhe bids made. Moreover, on looking through the catalogue, and having some knowledge of the marks and descriptions of the wool, jt would seem that some growers had picked the eyes out” of their wool and If- ~£ be unattractive lines to be sold in Wellington. The true test of the market. however, will be furnished when the Wellington wool comes to be offered at Wanganui next Monday morning.

Top-dressing Competitions. 4 conference of the Dairy Farmers’ Union, Pig Breeders’ Association, Herd Testing Association, Palmerston North Chamber of Commerce, and the Manawatu A. and P. Association is to be con- ■ yened to consider a competitive top-dress-ing scheme £pr district farmers. ‘ Mr R. P. Connell, of the fields division of the Department of Agriculture, in addressing dairy farmers on the subject at Palmerston, told them that careful accounts indicate that £1 spent on phosphates resulted in a grass return of £ll 10s. This result has been questioned because it seems too attractive to be possible. Examination of the records of the farm disclose that phosphates at the rate of about 2cwt an acre made is possible to carry an extra cow on every four to five acres. There was. nothing very remarkable when looked at in this way, but rather remarkable when expressed in terms of gross receipts for each pound of expenditure, .ie., £ll 10s for £l. In another instance top-dress-ing has been the direct cause of increasing the production of a farm from 41 to' 841 b an acre in two seasons.. In another farm on a totally different type of soil, top-dressing in three seasons has resulted in the herd being increased from 30 to 50 cows on 100 acres. Mr Connell instanced the case of a ’Manawatu farmer who produced G2lb of butter-fat per acre more than the average of four neighbouring similar farms, as the result of top-dress-ing, and bis herd averaged 2841 b of fat per cow, or rather lower than the average of two of his neighbour’s herds. Mr Connell explained that the leaders in the per acre production in lots of cases are not the leaders in the per cow production. That was the significant point. As yet, the district of which Palmerston North it the hub has merely sampled top-dress-ing results. Few visualise what its seems capable of accomplishing.' Manawatu does not differ in any important respects from other dairying districts, so that what has happened in other districts car: vies significance. Three seasons ago an investigation made of Waikato and Taranaki farms showed very strikingly how high herd average and liberal top-dressing are significantly linked. Out of 200 herds with those that averaged from 300 to 3501 b fat a cow, over 7cwt of phosphatic manure per cow was used; with those averaging less than 2201 b fat a cow, less than 4cwt phosphatic manure iwas used. DAIRYING INDUSTRY. DOMINION’S COMPETITORS. SOME TARIFF PROBLEMS. . Some interesting aspects of the dairying industry, notably export trade developments and tariff problems, were dealt with by Mr T. C, Brash, secretary of the New Zealand Dairy Produce Board 1 m an address at the conference of the Dairy Factory Managers’ Association at Patea recently. After briefly tracing the phenomenal growth of the dairying industry of the Dominion, whose annual exports had grown from £200,000 when he started work in a factory in 1889. to approximately £20.000 000 to-day, Mr Brash said that hew Zealand stood now as a source of supply to Britain ■ greater than any other country in the world. Britain herself produced a surprisingly large quantity of dairy producer-last year it was 10 per cent, of the butter and 28 per cent, of the cheese consumed in the United ivitigdoiTi. But Britain was largely an industrial country, and it was mainly bcc?VS j this the fact that she proAided a iicc market that the great deyelopment of the New Zealand dairying industry had been possible. The Dominion was now sending to the Homeland approximately 55 per cent, of the cheese and 22 per cent, of the butter imported. JNiew Zealand s exports to Great Britain had increased more rapidly than those of any other country. In 1915 New Zealand s proportion of the total imports into Britain was only a little over 0 per cent, of the butter and 22 per cent of the cheese.

Canada, with the result that they had lost that market to New Zealand. Canada was our big competitor in cheese, but her export was gradually falling, having decreased from 75,000 tons to 40,000 tons since 1910. At the present she was supplying approximately 28 per cent, of Britain’s imports of cheese, as compared with 47 per cent, in 1915. In pre-war days the prices realised for Canadian cheese were on a par with New Zealand, but there was a wide difference in favour of Canada to-day. The reasons given were that Canada had maintained tier quality against New Zealand’s falling on, and with a decreasing export there was a keener demand, whereas for New Zealand’s increasing quantity new markets have to be found. For many years New Zealand had been soing to Canada via Vancouver, but since 1926-2 1 the Dairy Board had largely developed trade with Eastern Canada. The quantities sent to that dominion during recent years were as follow; 1926-27 .. SS 2927-28 277,592 1928-29 512,598 1.929-30 700,000 • It was worthy of note that our shipments to Canada for the 1929-30 season to date were greater than our total exports to all markets for the year 1911 ine Canadian duty on New Zealand butter at present was per lb. TARIFF HANDICAPS. • dn le . United States of America an increase in the import duty on butter to 12 cents per lb and on cheese to 5 cents nor lb represented the closing of 'another door to New Zealand dairy produce A furUier alteration in the U.S.A. tariff which was at present under consideration is likely to affect us still further. This was the proposal to increase the dutv on cream and milk against Canada, Which must naturally mean an increse in the ouantity of butter being manufactured in Canada, with a lesser demand for New Zealand butter. Further, the Canadian producers were at present working up a Rltatlon a view t( > compelling & , t 0 J ln . crease the Wort duty on New Zealand butter to at least o cents per lb. This would very material 1 / IWL °-J g tra & to that dominion. PnJ™ * Baid ¥, thought the Canadian Government would hesitate before makfnr ni.lf ■ . lllorease against New Zealand, for our imports of various goods from fcda, were considerably larger than Canada a imports from New Zealand. The New Zealand Government was fully alive was h w7i a v e Canadian market and was watching the position closely. The Governments decision to establish a-New if ij tlade commissioner in Canada Sri producers!" &PproVal ° f Mr Brash also dealt briefly with the comnp°rf° f rf! x? tine and Ireland ns produce! W,tl New Zealand dairy tnJ?fff lin^r Ren -S rall , y ' vit - h the question of tariffs M r Brash said New ' Zealand f“f 0 r * ed th f. heaviest handicap of all conntries sending dairy produce to Britain by reason of her distance from that marT)L!i reK f le - r pnncipril competitor, Uonmark, a foreign country, was able to night '’almost overnight. Under Britain s present poliev instead of being handicapped as a foreign country, Denmark had thus a decided advantage over New Zealand. There were ?L COm ' Se i- Rr °t t ‘J'ffimflties in establishng a policy of Empire Freotrade with its corresponding duty against foreign countnes, but he thought there w as B a Ihat T7 m f9ohnS Jhroiighout the Empire mpiro-nroduced goods going into Britain should have preferential troatment as against those of foreign coun-