FARMING EXPERIENCES.

Otago Witness, Issue 1602, 5 August 1882, Page 6

FARMING EXPERIENCES.

The Advantages of a Good System of Mixed Farming.

As an instance of what may be done with a farm under a good system of mixed farming, I give an extract from a letter received from a friend in England by last mail. He was on a visit to the County of Somersetshire, and says : — ' The land seems to be bursting with fatness. The meadows are full of grass and stock of all kinds, the farm-yards crowded with corn and hay, the lanes with rosy children, and the ditches with young ducks. A certain well-to-do farmer hero is renting 400 acres, for which he pays £1100 rental ; and what with tithes, taxes, and wages he has to mako £2000 a year before he has a penny for himself. Therefore, to make only a comfortable living of £400 a year, he has to make £6 per acre yearly from his farm. And this he does by good management, in spite of the bad times, Farmers do not complain here of the prices ; it is tho bad seasons which have put so many in a corner,

Out of the 400-acre farm before mentioned, only 120 acres are arable land, the rest being pasture and meadow land. Only 50 acres of wheat are grown, the balance of the arable portion being devoted to roots, barley, &c. Stall-fed two-year-old steers are sold at £25 each, and fat lambs are sent to London and sold at Is per lb, averaging 45s per head. The farmers here grow most wonderful crops of trifolium incarnatum, and cut it for stock, which appear to thrive exceedingly well upon it. I think it ought to be tried in New Zealand. One farmer is now (May) cutting a very heavy crop of it, which he only harrowed in on the wheat stubble in September last. It is said to cost £20 per acre to properly stock a farm in this part at the present time. All the stock appears to be excellent and well-bred ; you will not see a weedy, unprofitable-looking beast in a week's journey.'

The Colonial farmers may wonder at anybody being able to make a living at farming, paying £5 per acre in rent and taxes, and having to contend with a succession of unfavourable seasons. But it is done in many cases in the Old Country, and, as Mr Jenner wrote in last week's issue, something approaching the same style must, and will in time, be practised here. A thorough understanding of the capabilities of the land if properly treated, and the requirements of the local and foreign markets for our various products, are first of all required, and then seeing what can be done and wnat will pay to do will gradually bring about a change in the general style of farming which will greatly add to the prosperity of New Zealand farmers individually and <tollectively. Artificial manures must, of cour^, be used, but the increased production and consumption of food upon the land will do wonders in maintaining if not increasing the fertility of the land.

Farmer.

South Canterbury, July 24th.