OUR CANTERBURY AGRICULTURAL BUDGET.

Otago Witness, Issue 3804, 8 February 1927, Page 20

OUR CANTERBURY AGRICULTURAL BUDGET.

(From Cue Own Correspondent.) A CHANGED COUNTRYSIDE. . Weather conditions have been decidedly warm in Canterbury in the past fortnight, and the appearance of the countryside has changed beyond recognition, with ripening crops and drying pastures. A good shower of rain would not come amiss at present, in spite of the harvest work being in full swing. Preliminary threshing returns suggest that in several grain-growing districts the wheat yields are not going to be as good as the crops promised a month ago. Records there are of excellent yields, but the generality is hardly up to the optimistic expectations formed a fortnight ago. A RUSH OF STORE SHEEP. . For the sale at Addington on Wednesday the . Railway Department was called upon to handle a large number of trucks, and for early February the offering of stdre sheep was something of a record.. This ■week they arrived from all quarters, and the sale of the lambs alone lasted until well into the afternoon. Many drafts of lambs which had been brought forward were in the sale, and dozens of graziers who'had surplus lambs to sell had lots forward. There are psychological factors in connection with the buying and selling of stock which cannot be ignored, and the weather of the past fortnight has worked a tremendous change in the appear"ance of the country, the greenness cf mid-January disappearing with' the commencement of February. Then the' sale was held 'in sweltering- heat, and it- was just the weather to have the effect of making the buj’ers careful. They certainly did exercise more care in making purchases this week, with the result that the prices fell by from 2s to 2s 6d. It will not be altogether disappointing to the farmers of the plains if ‘.the price level fixed on Wednesday holds, for store lambs were bringing values that left little chance ..of• the buyer fattening them .at a reasonable profit, and there was room for them' to come down, more especially as the market is not as strong as many would like - to see»it. A large proportion of the sheep were aged ewes, but some of the North: Islanxl lines 'had fairly good mouths, and the demand for them was satisfactory, -having due*'regard to condition and the quality of the ewes. ~ • From the bookings which have been made with steamship companies, it appears likelv that the number of ewes from the North Island shipped to Canterbury this autumn will be larger that was anticipated a month ago. • Well over 20,000 store sheep were yarded at Addington, as the total entry was 38,527. a very big yarding for a February sale’ Usually it is not until March that the very heavy entries of stock are: forward. A COMPARISON WITH THE NORTH. It is ( good for a farmer to . occasionally make a break from, his own enyirbnpient and see .what conditions confront the other fellow. A. week ago the writer happened to miss the t Addington sale, but was present at Westfield, and it was interesting to

compare the fat stock sales of Auckland with those of Canterbury. Naturally, the

northern yards do not attract such a large entry of stock as Addington, more particularly as the Westfield market is not a good centre for the sale of store sheep, but so far as fat stock is concerned, it was interesting to closely compare the two saleyards. The saleyards in the north are right beside the Auckland City Abattoir, and within easy distance of the freezing works which engage in the export trade and the slaughter houses of some of the firms which engage in the Auckland city trade. One of these latter is larger than many of the freezing works of the country districts, and more closely approximates the American packing houses than anything else in the Dominion so far as the variety of the goods manufactured is concerned. Very largely the butchering trade of the northern city is in the hands of two large butchering firms each with a considerable number of

shops scattered over the city, so that it is to be expected that the ring of buyers is smaller than obtains in the south, where a large number of butchers are reinforced by many representatives of meat-exporting firms. This extra competition means a great deal to the farmers of Canterbury. There the larger firms do a good deal of paddock buying, and when they have purchased freely in this manner they are off the market to some extent. In the beef section the entries were good, and some excellent quality lines were noticeable, but the predominance of the dairy industry in the north naturally means a good number of cows in the beef pens. All classes of fat stock bring better prices at Addington, and in the sheep and lamb pens the variation in nrice was most striking. The best of the wethers were practically five shillings a head below what similar sheep for butchers’ purposes would bring at Addington. One pen of magnificently fattened wethers, which would have hung up at 88’s to SO’s, sold at 275. Quite as striking was the disparity in the values of fat lambs. The pen which topped the market were from the Romney ewes by Shropshire rams, and were particularly well finished. The quality was well up to the Canterbury standard, and they carried excellent skins. The price for the first pen was 255, and another pen, which had evidently been run in, brought 24s 9d. These figures were from 4s to 5s less than the same sheep would have brought at Addington. Good progress has been made even in the Auckland province, which is not sheep country, in the production of fat lambs, and some of the draft were well finished. In the pig section the sales were interesting. Two pig sales are held. Fats and stores are sold simultaneously. In the morning at 9 o’clock the fat cattle auction commences, and shortly after the vealers are sold, the two auctions being practically simultaneous. When the beef sale is completed, lhe auctioneers pass on to the sheep and then the lambs. While the two latter are. being sold the pigs are auctioned, and in price the Canterbury vendor is luckv to the extent of close on 2d a lb. XS hat was . most striking was the closeness of the price of fat and store pigs. The fattener was left very little margin to work on. RESEARCH WORK IN EUROPE.

In a volumii ous .eport upon his recent trip to Europe, M' R. E. Alexander, director of. Canterbury Agricultural College. Lincoln, d:scusses many subjects, particularly research v o.k. . “When visiting the various agricultural research stations in Great Britain, Ireland, Denmark, and Sweden.” Mr Alexander writes, “one cannot fail to be impressed ■with the stations an I work as a whole. The .apital expenditure involved must have been very large, and would be. sufficient to damp the ardour and enthusiasm of the less wealthy communities, but one might, without being unduly critical, question the wisdom of such a very large expenditure at the outset. Rather, let the outlay advance with the work. However, that is only by the way. lhe growth of research work is one of the striking features of agricultural developmeat in Europe to anyone visiting this part of the world, even after a comparatively short interval. It must be remembered that t’ is development has taken place largely within the last 10 years. That the bulk of the work is sure to have an important bearing on the future of agriculture, no W can question, that is so long as the work is directed towards the solution of everyday problems or so long as the workers have as their chief aims the solving of the farmers’ difficulties, nnt. whollv occupied in dis-

covering the fundamentals without any re- , gard to the economic aspect of the problem under investigation. What I mean here can be best illustrated by examples put before me. A farmer finds his crop being destroyed by an unknown attack. He invokes the aid of the research station, which starts work on the cause of the disease, but offers no immediate help or advice to the farmer, who is left to go bankrupt while the fundamental is under investigation, and then a further period will be wasted working out remedial measures. Why should the work not begin with remedial measures while others are working out the fundamental —again the issue is being clouded by side issues. lake uie amount of written matter and the involved calculations on the “probable experimental error.” Of .what value is this to the general community? If the result of an experiment fs so near the dividing line that the chance- of a gain or loss have to be worked out by an intricate mathematical formula, it is useless from an economic point of view. In herd-test-ing, for instance, the important point is not the correctness of the figures to the third decimal dace, but the fact whether the cow is a rent payer or not, and this can be seen even wi h an error of plus or minus 5 per cent. ' “I do not intend to pose as a critic, but I feel that there is a very grave danger of research institutions becoming. too academic and ignoring the application altogether. My criticism, if it is criticism, is directed more at the organisation than the work,. I can only add that I hope organisers or directors of agricultural research will be well and carefully chosen from those workers who arc as fully conscious of the economic aspect of the questions placed before them as they are of fundamentals involved. “One arrangement in regard to research stations in Great Britain which must strike the visitor as peculiar is the attempt to scatter them all over the country from Aberdeen in the north to the extreme south of England. I don’t for a moment suggest that all research workers should be housed under one roof, but I do think it would be better for all if the workers were within easy reach of

one another. In Britain decentralisation has been carried to the extremes —in fact, one would think that the different workers were naughty school children, and must be kept as far apart as possible. Surely this is unnecessary. In pleasant contrast to this arrangement one sees in Denmark, the Irish Free State, and Northern Ireland (and, be it noted, Ireland is supposed to be the land > f rows and ructions where factions must be kept apart). research workers working in close proximity to one another, and federated under one head. I feel certain that this arrangement will lead to better work than divided control. In fact, one has only to visit the centres to get the comparison—suspicion and lack of common interest on the one hand, and a better feeling and community of interest on the other. I might say, however, thht this criticism does not lessen my admiration of the work nor confidence in its outcome. It only adds to the cost of administration without any corresponding advantage, and points out a course that should not be followed or adopted. “I am enthusiastic enough about what I have seen’to express the hope that as soon as possible many of the lines will be extended to New Zealand, and that we at Lincoln may be privileged to institute those lines which could be carried on without in any way interfering with our present work. The branches of research that I feel could be carried out at the college without interfering with our present work are: —(1) Manorial trials; (2) Plantbreeding, (a) cereals (b) grasses and clovers; (3) Animal nutrition; (4) r arm costing ; (5) Animal breeding.”