SOUTHLAND AGRICULTURAL NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3566, 18 July 1922, Page 14

SOUTHLAND AGRICULTURAL NOTES.

(From Oue Own Correspon dent.) Most occupations and trades may be regulated and controlled, under a system of arbitration, even though in its operation it may be of a too rigidly cast iron nature. Not so farming, unless the amount of rainfall, sunshine, and other conditions can be meted out as required. The same with marketing. A law of supply and demand would require to be held in obeyance, and its operations defied. The sum of the whole matter, quoting Mr J. R. Hamilton’s remarks in Parliament, is: “The conditions surrounding the employment of people working on the land are such that it is impossible for farmers to carry on efficiently if surrounded by Arbitration Court awards and union conditions.” Mr Hamilton is clear, emphatic, and quite decided in his opinion of the benefits already derived from the establishment of the meat pool, which every fanner can endorse and which is worth quoting: “The board,” he says, “has not been able to increase prices in the world’s markets, but it has enabled the farmers to get the full market value of thenproduce. They were not getting the full market value of their produce. They were not getting the full market until the board put them in nossession of some information about _ marketing conditions.” “The board,” he also says, “has helped to reduce handling charges, and to understand what the markets wanted.” Over a hundred residents of the Seaward Bush district have signed and forwarded a petition to the Borough Council, to carry out the suggestion of the Prime Minister while in Invercargill, to dispose of the bush endowments to the Government, and, being Crown land, the occupiers would have unbroken tenure, and the right to buy their own holdings. The Reserves C( mmittee have it on hand. Although the price of rabbitekins has fallen to such an extent, many who have been rabbiting are still carrying on in the hope, and almost sure belief, that there will, ere long, be a rise in the price of sains. Even at 6tl per skin good wages car, be made, although there are not such, large cheques coming to hand per month us some were making in high country and obtaining skins of first quality. In some districts, where bunny' was very numerous a short time ago, scarcely any are to be seen, and all over they must have been considerably reduced. Mr R A. Anderson, for his Victoria Park herd, has been purchasing a considerable number of high-class pedigreed Shorthorns to augment his herd, also milking Shorthorns. He has secured a three”year-old sire from a stock of heavy mikling Shorthorns. This sire, Greenfield Royalist, was selected from Mr H. Campbell’s Matangi herd, one of the most noted in the Waikato. Seven of the most promising heifers were purchased from the Ruakura herd, and all having dams which were record breakers, in heavy milking and high percentage butter-fat producers. Mr Anderson is to be congratulated on bis selecting and purchasing enterprise. There is a strongly forward movement in Southland at present for the establishment of boys’ clubs. Those connected with the (forge Road experimental plot have taken the matter in, hand, and have the support of the Southland A. and P. Society, who are in sympathy with the movement, as shown at a meeting of directors recently held. The Department of Agriculture, through Mr Alexander having given some of the boys taking an interest in the plots sugar beef seed to take home* and cultivate, has created a spirit* of deep interest and rivalry amongst* them, leading to the prospective forming of boys’ clubs. At George Road last season Chou Mollier and field cabbage were successfully grown by several farmers. Although many predicted failure, the experiment has been an unqualified success. One farmer who estimated his- crop of cabbage at up to. or ever 20 tons per acre, has been feeding his cows steadily on them up to now, and he has not yet resorted to turnip feeding. Those who make an experiment are ever the most ready to have a larger area in supplementary crops for the following season. There are some who have not been so successful with lucerne growing as they might have been.