A NORTH ISLAND TALK.

Otago Witness, Issue 3098, 30 July 1913, Page 16

A NORTH ISLAND TALK.

(From Our Own Correspondent.) PALMERSTON N., July 25

Perhaps the greatest event of the North Island this week is the fierce land hunger. So fierce was it at a ballot for 1616 acres at Mangatainoka, near Pahiatua, that while old men jostled with young in an ague of longing and women with babies were sandwiched in the clamorous throng, an cxM.P. (Mr R. B. Ross), champion of the married, threatened Supremo Court procedings unless the married and the chronic disappoinreds were given preference. Hunger, indeed ! Nearly a thousand applicants wore cast out in the prclhninary examination, many of whom were the young fry who had not yet been sufficiently disappointed. Many applicants had entered for as many as 10 sections. Seemingly you have to hit hard to win a land fight these times. The days are gone when one went and gazed upon a certain vista and murmured softly, ‘‘Behold my soul’s desire 1” These are days of hustle and wrestle—days of express train trips from north and south, of wholesale stakes, Bays when you back your money on any one of ten starters and then pray with feeble, trembling hope for one little win. Land selection is no longer a matter of romance. It is a game of butter-fat and dollars. THE WINNERS. ■Mangatainoka is part of that famous fertile rainy territory known as the Forty-mile Bush, where now the big monarchy of the forest are- fast giving way to his Majesty King Milking Machine. The total applicants for the 22 sections numbered 372. They put in 2662 applications, of which 1736 survived the preliminary tribunal. The final winners have already been telegraphed, so I need not repeat. CRUMBLING ESTATES The land boom is gradually crumbling the big sheep estates into small dairy farms. Within a radius of 30 miles of Palmerston North during the past six months several hundreds of acres of such big holdings have been thus placed upon the market, with practically an entire clearance. The prices have exceeded expectations. It seems that no matter how we may bemoan the catastrophic rise in land values we cannot stem the tide. Dairy farmers are swallowing the grim truth that it wall soon cost £5 per year to graze every cow, and are looking round for means to make ends meet. There is no doubt it will make better farmers of us all, and make us keep better cows. 1 heard to-day of an owner of a herd of 40 cows which were returning £2O 10s 6d per head. They were Jerseys, and I think the value of the calves was included in the total. But these side issues—whether they be well-bred calves or well-fattened pigs—are going to bo counted by all of us very soon. What occurs to my mind just now is the enormous increase of population that is foreshadowed by the cutting-up movement. Not only sheep-owners, but large dairy farmers, are running their properties into the market. The latter arc squeezed by the labour troubles, which make large dairying increasingly difficult. If labour troubles have the ultimate effect of peopling New Zealand with small farmers they will be merely hastening tin's country's -destiny, and. 1 suppose, also her safety from the international aspect. Thus labour, by forcing the large holders to subdivide, is enabling her own units to acquire the small sections and become themselves landed proprietors —and Tor-es. This will do no harm, though personally L have found the large proper! yovvners verv good and useful people,—so mu eh so th-’t I have a strong desire to bo one mvsolf THE PRODUCE MARKETS. The near approach of the Australian consignments of chaff for Auckland has had a remarkable effect on that hitherto voracous market in relation to local supplies. Jlie merchants in (he northern city have almost ceased operating locally, their object being to prepare a bare market for the Federal stuff. That this will be a permanent annual occurrence may be doubted by some, though the likelihood is serious enough to demand from chaff-growers a grave review of their rotation plans. Chaff has hitherto been a useful refuge in face of a gloomy oat market; it may be wise in future to see to what extent our farm products can be turned into meat and butter-fat instead. That is all a part of the drift to more intensive farming, so that though my chaff notes may appear pr s.s’mistie. they in reality possess a very optimistic trend. GRADED POTATOES. About Kimbolton’s interesting now potato ailment —to wit, a bitterness without greenness. —I am not .yet able to record the verdict of the Government Biologist, whose report is not yet to hand. There are about 500 tons of potatoes still on hand in that rising tuber country, and as merchants are now in the mood to regard every sack with suspicion tlie matter is important. A supply of 500 tons is not big. considering Kimbolton’s wide trade, and it is possible that further investigation may show the trouble to be less extensive than was at first supposed. If the biologist declares the trouble to he due to exposure of the sacks to the wind, it is obvious that the producers can not have been all guillv of the same error. A point that will interest all northern potato-growers : s a movement among merchants to standardise potatoes. I believe that hi the ffhiith Island —Canterbury, for example.-—the big growers use a mechanical grader which sorts the tubers into respective sizes, much as apples are graded. This practice is not in vogue in the north. The potatoes are graded by rough guesswork, or, ns has happened in some instances, not graded at oil. There are times when small potatoes are worth more than largo ones. That is at seed time. But nobody likes large and small mixed. Where trade is merely local the unsorted supplies are sometimes nicked over in the merchants’ stores. But. at Kimholton particularly the trade is of export dimensions, and that, necessitates that the tnliers shall be trucked at the place of production and consigned to the ultimate customer without any storage charges en route. What, is going to happen tin’s next season is that merchants will probnblv arrange standard grades so fhat_ growers will know In which sizes to sort their crops. On a fixed system of this kind big contracts for export will become greatly facilitated, nnd the local industry should greatly benefit.

SILVER BEET. The keen demand for silver beet seed for fin °P f° r 9o c . crops is slowly revealing itself. 1 hough it is still very early for farmers to bo ordering their seed for spring sowing, I heal'd to-day of a farmer sending in an order for half a hundredweight. Hitherto, most of the plots have been experimental, requiring only a few pounds of seed. In Hawke’s Bay, whore the drought at times seriously checks the grazing industry, there is a sharp interest shown in this somewhat new fodder, and eases of increased sowings are reported. If it enables Hawke’s Bay squatters to avoid sacrificing their flocks a't scorching midsummer it will prove worth millions of pounds. Silver beet is a good summer grower, but it is not a deep-rooted plant like lucerne. So one must not expect it to resist drought without assistance. The practicable kind of assistance in the case of silver beet, of course, is cultivation. I rather fancy there will be one or two farmers thoughtless enough to sow the seed broadcast. They will then be unable, without disaster to the crop, to harrow or cultivate it when it is eaten down, because implements which would slip past lucerne stems would haul the silver beet out of the ground. The only rational way is, of course, to drill in the seed in rows about 21 inches apart. Then, after each feeding-off a cultivator run up the rows to produce a mulch should create a midsummer oasis, even in sunburnt Hawke’s Bay. There arc manv tracts in the North Island which should grow silver boot as luxuriantly as Belfast, where 218 tong per aero recorded. Taranaki, Hawke’s Bay, Gisborne, Wairarapa. Manawatu, and Waikato all have very fertile properties capable of great production. NOT TRUE TO NAME. One of the troubles of the next few seasons will be to get silver beet seed truo to type. 1 wonder if, at present, there is a single merchant in New Zealand who knows whore he can look for wholesale supplies of that plain-leaved, dark-green, thickstemmed variety which they found at Belfast to grow so furiously. I am inclined to think the silver beet industry is too young in Now Zealand just now to have been sorted out into its particular sub-varieties. If any merchant is very anxious to convince farmers that he alone possesses tho right particular, kind of seed which produces exclusively the dark-leaved plant, I rather advise him to got busy to find out its botanical name, because I don’t think that has yet been announced in New Zealand. For a few years to come it seems likely farmers will need to be reconciled to sowing tho various varieties mixed, as obtainable, thinning out afterwards the weaker sorts and filling gaps by transplanting, which silver beet will stand. A few seasons hence, if the crop takes on we.ll, there will be, no doubt, plenty of the right seed grown on the various seed-growers’ farms. It should be a remunerative industry. If men find they can give anything like 14 days’ toppingoff to six consecutive flocks of 170 hoggets in one year on an acre of silver beet they are going soon to demand supplies of tills seed very persistently. The equivalent in butter-fat must be rather a bewildering topic for dairy farmers too.