NOTES ON RURAL TOPICS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2661, 15 March 1905, Page 7

NOTES ON RURAL TOPICS.

A farmer from Otago is now visiting his native country, and writes Farming to say that the people there in the will not believe him when Colonies. he tells them how we do our work in the colonies. He therefore wishes me to state some facts for their information, in the "Witness, being evidently of the opinion that though they regard his statements as travellers' tales, they will not question the accuracy of what they see in print. Well, to begin with, I will take the threshing of grain as. an example of the speed with which farm work is performed with us-. In most parts of Britain they consider about 100 sacks — 400 bushels — a fair day's work. They have just as good engines and machinery as we have, but they go about the work in a different way. The hands are paid by the week or th.3 day; they only work the customary eight-hour day. The climate is moister. and so the does not thresh so easily ; the straw, for the most part, is long and coarse, and therefore the grain does not come down the spouts at a very fast rate. Here in New Zealand the conditions are different. The men are paid *hy the bushel — or. rather, by the 1000 bushels ; steam is up in tho engine as =oon as it is daylight, and the work goes on until it iis dark. So that the length of the working day depends upon the number of hours of daylight. When the grain is well headed and is in tip-top order for threshing, a firstclass threshing plant can put through a surprising quantity of grain, especially oats. Canterbury is the leading- grain-gi-owing district of the colony, and some very big threshing tallies have been made there on large grain farms. I know for a fact that two thousand five hundred bushels of oats have been frequently bagged in a day, but I cannot say for certain how many hotirs "were counted as a day — probably 10 hours. I saw a paragraph in the papers a year ago to the effect that a mill had put up a day's record with 3000 bushels of oats. (Three thousand bushels — nc less !) That means that the dressed oats run down the spouts at the rate of nearly three hundred bushels per hour. Tho men don't mind how long or hoy» hard they work when they are paid by results, and are inspired to great efforts by Ihe sight of the rapidly increasing pile of bags. Of course, these big tallies can only be made under the most favourable conditions, and where grain is grown on a large scale. Where the land is level and the crop heavy, the clumps of stacks are not far apart, and a smart crowd of men will have the belt on and tha drum running again a few minutes after leaving th.> last set. But what I have described is nothing compared! with th© speed with which harvesting is performed "in the big wheat-growing areas of America. The'-e TOey reap, -thresh, and bag the grain in one operation. They have a machine 30ft wide that outs off the. heads and discharges the threshed and dressed grain sacks at the tail of the machine. Ihen with regard to ploughing: Tha rate at which wo' get over th.^ ground would undoubtedly be a matter of surprise to the steady-going farmers of Britain, with their small field-. single ploughs, and slow horses. Mn-k plough team? here are quiek-steppiwg and active: we use ploughs made in the colony, and adapted for our work. Four acres por day is a very common thing with a double-fur-row plough and four hor^e*. I have scon contractors do five acres in a day of 10 hours. I or.cc vis'ted a 10,000-ecre farm, and saw. 10 double furrow plough teams go'-ip-rcmid a 400-arre pa l dock, -nhkh they tur.icd over in 10 days. Tin re-furrow plough- are al^o vejy common, and five hor-cs can with them turn over six acres a day iVIy correspondent al s o refers to the woi'k of loading sacks of oats, and wants me to say how long it should take a man to load up 20 sacks on a dray. It depends upon whether he takes them from the top or Wttom of a pile ox bags. On an averaso, a

good man should do such a job by himself in half an hour or less. I would net mind doing it myself in 15 minutes, but should not care about keeping it up all day long. For this work it is better to have two men, ' especially in handling wheat. Many other things could be mentioned to show that farm work is iDerformcd more expeditiously here than in the older countries, simply because we do things on a larger scale, and consequently have to work on a diffez-ent system. The catUe weighbridge ought to be the farmers' fri«-nd, because farSelling Stock mcrs eeiylmg fat bullocks to I by an auction sale or selling 1 Live Weight, pri rarely on the farm cannot e s tiniate the dead weight so accurately as butcher* can who are constantly baying fat beast.s, and, moreover, can chask their judgment whoii the b&ast is killed and eufc vp. Nearly everything else a farmer sells is sold ly actual weight cr measure, and yet many English farm3rs are opposed to th<* introduction of weighbridges at their public auction marts. It must be nearly 20 years since Mr M'Janett, a Scottish farmer, first began to advocate the system of selling by live weight, and he has succeeded so well in his crusade against the gue«s\vo'-k method that weighbridges are now in u=e , in pretty well all the chief cattle* markets jin Scotland. This method of cellmj; is also lin general use in America, and it seen:* si range that there should be strong objection to it by so many Engl : sh farmers. I see- by Home papers that the introduction of the weighbridge at York market has c&used keen and bhter opposition from the butcb'.rs. who go so far as to threaten to boycott that market if the sysem of selling by weight is persisted in. there. I should think that the antagonism of tho butchers should be sufficient to convince farmers that it is better for them to sell by weight than by the old way. for it is evident that the butchers prefer the old way, or they would rot show so much dislike of the weighbridge. It is evident that the butchers thjnk they can make a better bargain when buying in the "lump," as they catll it. Their judgment is listtej tfian the fanner's because it is their business to be aonstantly estimating the weight and quality of fat stock, and if they can assess the weight by lewt in their own favour now and then, it means a considerable addition to their profits. We all know that the proportion of meat to offal varies very much according to tho fatness and quality of the beast. I notice it ~is stated that tho killing of some of ihe fat beasts at the last Smithfield (London) show showed that the meat ranged from 57 to 73.25 iDer cent, of the live weight. That would be a higher percentage than ordinary fat would give, but it shows how tlu quality varies, even in prime show fat stock. Without the weighbridge a farmer has first to guess the live weight of any beasts lie is offerings and then gue.ss the percentage of dead meat; but when the scales have given him th© live weight, he has only to decide how the beast will kill, and. as a rule, the butchers can beat him at that business. As I have said, other farm produce i-s sold by actual weight, or measure, and it is .only right and reasonable to include fat stock as well. Where th?. weighbridge is in use. store cattle are also sold by live weight, so that a farmer buying beasts to fatten knows the gain in weight of the finished animal. The same applies to the- sale of fat sheep and lambs, especially the latter. Few farmers can tell tho weight of a live fat lamb, and' are at a disadvantage when the experts from the freezing works come round to buy fat lambs. Many farmers prefer to ship on their owri account or sell at ?o much per , lb, freezing weights, rather than sell on j foot at the farm, because they think the i expert will keep bolow the mark in the j price offered per lamb. And they probably do unless the competition is very keen. I don't suppose any country in the world has mads such an advance Advance, is Canada has during the Canada. la=t 10 years. No le*s than 100.000 well-to-do farmevs have moved into North-West Canada from th & United States. The area of Canada is 3,750,000 square miles. The area of New Zealand is 104,000 square miles. The population of Canada only averages 1^ persons ' per square mile — England and Wales have 553 people per square mile. Canada has 30 million aieres under cultivation, and double that area still untouched. It is said ' that in the groat wheat belt the'-e are milI lions of acres awaiting- the plough. A« the i area of the British I=les is only 120,000 ' sciuaiv. miles, and the population over 40 millions, it is a good thing that there are ! •othen- countries in the Empire with a bit of land to spare for their food production. AGEICOLA.