SCIENCE MARCHES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26233, 17 August 1946, Page 4

SCIENCE MARCHES

The Farm

“ BURST OF RESEARCH " NEW ZEALAND MUST KEEP ABREAST OF TIMES By Rusticus The reproduction on this page of the remarkable piece of machinery known as the Senn CO2 butter-mak-ing machine, which has astonished everyone who has seen it in action in Switzerland, serves to draw attention to what Mr W. Marshall, chairman of directors of the New Zealand Cooperative Dairy Society, recently described as “a great burst of research and experimentation into all kinds of dairy factory equipment, with a distinct possibility of a revolutionary change in butter making.” Mr Marshall has been to Switzerland. Germany, Holland, Denmark and Sweden in investigation of this progress, and it will not be surprising if his findings result in a stepping-up of experimentation and research along similar lines in New Zealand. This country obviously cannot afford to ignore such, a trend, and it may well prove that there is much scope nere at least for the application of other countries’ inventions. Mr Marshall spoke of the Senn CO2 machine as virtually a continuous processing and packing plant which was manufacturing commercial butter by a process entirely different from that in New Zealand. In Germany he saw another continuous processing machine known as the Fritz and still another, the Alpha, which had been developed during the war, A machine of the same name was in use in Sweden, manufacturing butter from sweet cream and producing a product which was excellent for European requirements. Various developments in Denmark were equally impressive, and the report which Mr Marshall will make on his return to New Zealand should be of great interest to the industry. Progress in Sweden There are many indications that Sweden is maintaining her progressive attitude towards agriculture. The agriculture correspondent of The Times, for instance, was greatly impressed when he attended Sweden’s centenary show celebrations in June by developments of modern machines which he considered would be useful for English conditions. One was a straw chopper and spreader incorporated behind a combined harvester —a device which should overcome the difficulty of ploughing in straw left behind on the stubble The other, was a potato lifter of the elevator type with a series of rubber bands over which the potatoes passed and through which stones fell. A sugar beet lifter newly produced in Sweden also looked promising, and the correspondent said that it was to be tried in England. Most of the farms in Sweden are small, but the larger farms in the south offer scope for the mechanisation of the harvesting of their sugar beet and potato crops as well as grain, and it was stated that there were plans for joining up some of the smaller holdings in the less fertile districts. In the farming sphere, Sweden is a typically yeoman country. Most of the land is owned by small farmers who work their own holdings. To help themselves they have established a complete chain of farmers’ co-opera-tive associations, and the ordinary farmer belongs to three or four branch organisations through which he sells his milk, livestock, and eggs and gets bank credit when he needs it. Such enterprise, which serves producers and consumers well and enjoys almost unanimous support, undoubtedly contributes much to Sweden’s happy state in a war-wearv world. Business Initiative

The correspondent records that Sweden's farmers have taken the initiative in organising their own business without waiting for an official lead. They even have their own architectural and building advisory service, organised by the federation of Swedish farmers’ associations. As in Great Britain, he writes, there is much to be done to improve farm buildings and workers’ cottages. Although farm wages in Sweden are already on the £4 a week level, everyone says that conditions must be improved if the younger generation are to stay on the land. So the farmers have provided themselves with expert advice given at 21 local offices where any farmer can discuss his problem and obtain building plans. Another farmers’ enterprise which now has Government backing is a training school for young men and women who are likely to make leaders in the farming community or officials in farmers’ societies. For last winter’s course there were 109 applicants for 40 places Such progress is not singular to Sweden, and no doubt there is much that other countries could learn from farm methods in New Zealand. Nevertheless the point should not be overlooked that the Swedes are inerenious people and that there may be advances in their machinery and eeneral farm practice and in the work of inventors of other nation' which could be turned to the advantage of New Zealand. The Dresent state of world markets will not lasi, indefinitely, and nothing should be 16ft undone that might help toe Dominion to maintain her place mong the producer countries.