A NORTH ISLAND TALK.

Otago Witness, Issue 3115, 26 November 1913, Page 16

A NORTH ISLAND TALK.

(From Our Own* Correspondent.) PALMERSTON N., November 20. Good growing weather with a fair amount of both rain and sunshine has characterised the week. Active crop-growing continues in all parts, giving a strong assurance that prime lamb and sheep will be abundant this secson. and that dairy stock will winter well. Nothing but the strike lias occurred to ruffh the serenity of the farmer’s existence; but one result of that industrial disturbance has provided the dairying men with a quite novel experience, for many dairy factories to-day arc paying out only 6d per lb for butter-fat. It scorns to me that they are erring very extravagantly on the safe side, and I fancy many supplieis think so, too; but no doubt the wise directors like to bo doubly sure in these times of upheaval. I notice that in respect of some of the consignments from Wellington the banks have already promised payment, and with the fanners’ sturdy sons loading up in quick time the further full payments may soon bo expected. The 6d payments will cause many old stagers to remember the days of 4d butter. SETTLING THE LAND. Several fertile tracts of land have boon opened for settlement this month. One is the Alpass Estate of the Public Trustee, near Atfrodton. in Wairarapa, and 17 miles from the railway. It has an area of 2800 acres, and is being offered in four farms, varying from 500 to 900 acres in extent. It lias wintered one and a-half sheep per acre, besides 300 cattle. The easy terms (£0 per cent, remaining at interest at 5i percent.) are quite necessary in thesq, days of tight money. Another estate of greater interest is the Hoatlicrlca '.Estate, near the Woraroa Experiment Farm at Levin. 1 Ins 1 is a district where dairy farmers love to settle, and I am surprised that there are only 37 applications for the 26 sections. The land is rich grazing land, in English grass, with the remnants of the forest well rotted, so that an immediate income awaits those who have milking herds ready to place upon it. It is essentially a district of very small holdings, and in addition to a few five-acre lots for town workers the sections rang in area from 23 to 37 acres. " Many of the sections will, 1 expect, carry 20 cows, and as the rents are based on a capital value of about £4O per acre a good income is assured. The Levin dairymen arc developing the soiling system to a high degree. and there are visions entertained there of an extensive chain of “’pocket” dairy farms entirely covering the whole area running two cows to the acre, and maintaining the Wellington city milk supply. It is on account of these dreams, which"’" will no doubt some day bo realised, that I am surprisi <1 at the smallness of the present rush. Possibly the strike and its affect on the butter-fat cheques deterred many people from applying. It is a district where maize, oats, and mangolds are much valued at milk-producers. There is nowadays, it seems to mo, too great a tendency to estimate a property's stock-carrying capacity by the amount of its grazing. A new selector often has to base his first year’s work on the gross yield, but ho need not adopt that as an impassable limit. Where cropgrowing <an enable a 20-cow farm to carry 40 cows it becomes merely a question of arithmetic whether the game is worth taking up. If a man is paying £2 a week for a farm which grazes 20 cows, it is as well for him. to spend another £2 per week growing crops to keep another 20 head as it is to rent an adjoining section of equal area. In actual fact it is better, because there are advantages about cropping which make dairying more certain. Of course, it would not cost £2 per week to grow crops for 20 cows, and wherever it is adopted cropping is found to pay. The Levin farmers have the advantage of the Weraroa Experiment Farm in their midst, for the manager (Mr Drysclale) is a keen I cropper. It is what they call in England ‘‘high farming.” THE SHEEP INDUSTRY. Foddci -growing for sheep and lambs Is developing fast in Wairarap*. Record quantities of -raps and turnip have been put down this season, and there is a healthy feeling prevalent that prices this season are going to be big. The system of rape-feed-ing as a preliminary to turnips where the lambs remain on for these is adopted. Coarse wools are the predominant element in Wairarapa districts, and it is interesting to those people to learn from a wool export just out from England that coarse is on the boom. This authority told a Wairarapa farmer that complaints had been i.aadfc of the increasing proportion of Romney fleeces, and a want was felt for more Lincoln staple. The abolition of the American tariff charge was, he said, going to improve the value of coarse wool greatly. He

believes that two years hence coarse Lincoln wool will be in the ascendancy. Apropos of this question, the latest letters from Homo of the wool, sales report a very strong demand, one writer remarking that supply and demand (in Scriptural phrase) have kissed each other, and that the “wearer is still near the sheep’s back.” A LINCOLN BREEDER. A o-entleman, who has been a sort of Lincoln king in Wainarana, and done more for the hre<'d than any other man in the district, is Mr \V. Perry. Ho has lately been doing a jaunt to England, and on h:s return is to receive a warm reception from follow’ settlors At a monthly meeting of the Mastorton A. and P. Assoeiat'on last week Mr James M‘Gregor suggested that Mr Perrv on his return be asked to address the members on live stock and agricultural matters as ho saw them at Homo, and at the same gatherin'? they could give him a formal welcome. The chairman. Mr O. C. Cooper, warmly endorsed the idea, and it was resolved to adopt it WILL PANAMA HURT US? T notice that Captain Pearso, well known in connection with the Pastoral Review, who attended the recent Chicago refrigeration congress as delegate from New Zealand and Australian freezing companies and the Australian Government, is not so optimist c as some of ns about the effect of the Panama Canal. He says that the canal will do us more harm than good at first, because it will bring South American goods into competition nga’nst us in Pari(ic markets Idtherto regarded as peculiarly our own. Tie is a littU bit. cynical, by the way, about the “Argentine moat trust” we speak of so glibly. He ?.avs it may have been a trust at one time, but ju«t now its component parts are waging a keen commercial war.