FARMING PROBLEMS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23688, 21 December 1938, Page 12

FARMING PROBLEMS

SHORTAGE OF SHEARERS FEW LEARNERS THIS SEASOfJ HIGH PUBLIC WORKS WAGE BLAMED (Special to Daily Times) CHRISTCHURCH, Dec. 20. The shortage of shearers is becoming a serious difficulty with a number of runholdevs in the high country this season and. combined with the changeable and wet weather that has predominated all over the South Island for the last month to six weeks, it has become an almost insurmountable problem. A representative of the Press, who visited North Otago and Central Otago districts, was told that in the Lake Pukaki district there were three sheds within 20 miles of each other shearing with only one shearer each. A number of sheds which usually employ from four to nine shearers this year have only two and three men on the board. Shearing in this manner becomes very costly, as classers and shed hands have to be employed for so much longer, and also sheep have to be kept on small clocks near the homestead. and this, with the constant handling and dogging, tends to weaken and spoil their constitution. A number of sheep men contend that, after a severe winter such as the last one. sheep are better shorn as early as possible, as they pick up in condition much quicker after shearing, and can be left unmolested until the fall muster. Fortunately, there seem to be more Australian shearers in New Zealand than usual this year, and any that have come have found positions almost Immediately. Machine shearing is mostly generally used in Australia, and. as blade shearers are mostly used in the South Island, the chances of relief being supplied from that direction are lessened. Several runholders have expressed alarm at the very few men learning shearing in the sheds this summer. The lack of interest shown by young men is also indicated bv the poor attendances at the shearing classes held by some of the Technical High Schools, in some cases the classes having to be abandoned altogether. The wages which young men were at present earning on public works was given as one ox the reasons for this lack of farm labour, and several station owners expressed apprenhension about future seasons. To add to the difficulty of the shortage of shearers, another problem seems to be growing, and that Is the shortage of musterers. As yet, this problem is not acute, but it seems that it is only a matter of time before it becomes so. For shearing, mustering, and rabbiting there are no labour-saving machines, and men are essential, and all three are jobs that require several years of experience. There seems to be fewer men now in the high country, who do little else but mustering, and. unless a man is mustering continuously for six or seven months of the year, he finds it difficult to break in and train pups, with the result that dogs are becoming few. and it is difficult for young men beginning mustering to get enough dogs to make a start.