MY COUNTRY NOTEBOOK

Otago Witness, Issue 3832, 23 August 1927, Page 38

MY COUNTRY NOTEBOOK

Bv

MURIHIKU.

(Special fou the Otago Witness.) The first plant to bloom-in our garden is the pink flowering currant. It is generally weeks ahead of all other;, but rhe crocus and the wattle bloom defii’ ely proclaim the spring. And now, down by the shelter of the briar hedge, the little yellow crocuses are bravely opening to the spring sun. The wattle is everywhere bursting into its glorious tassels of gold—surely it must be spring!

Of course, there is very little show in the grass as yet. Here and there on warm, dry faces the young green is apparent, and the frosts we get every week cut back the tender shoots, and will keep on doing so right away through August and September. Any Otago spring that comes before the beginning of October is generally a false one.

Coming down in the trai" through South Canterbury the wheat ; addocks look absolutely saturated. Water can be seen in every depression, but where the young wheat is sown on the ridges " is ■coming away nicely. Provided drying winds do not come too soon the earlysown wheat should have a very fair chance. Wheat farmers may have a reasonable year this coming season. With the price round about 6s per bushel, and the crop any more than 30 bushels per acre, it will pay to grow wheat.

Our wheat farmers arc about the only farmers who can really get effective protection. That is because all the wheat produced is consumed in the Dominion. Id the United States the dairy farmer gets the benefit of a protective tariff—because all the butter and cheese and milk is consumed within the borders of the United States. Other American farniei cannot get what they call “ equality for agriculture,” and so arc very dissatisfied. In New Zealand everybody can get protection, except the farmer. If all our farm products were consumed within the Dominion we could get protection, too. But how would we pay for our imports’? That’s the rub! We simply have to export in order to pay our way nationally. And it is no solution to our national problems if wc consume everything locally.

If we could compete with the world with manufactured goods all might be well, but so far we have not been able to make any articles that can withstand world competition. In fact, we have this extraordinary state of affairs: Protected manufactured articles cannot compete with the outside world, yet unprotected farmers who have to sell at world prices, and compete with all sorts of cheap labour, can successfully compete, even although our freight costs must be higher than those of any other nation.

With the spring coming everybody is full of hope. The prospects for this year certainly look much better than last. Wool will evidently be as good as last year; so will lamb and mutton. Dairy produce should be a good deal better—last year at this time there were immense accumulations of both butter and cheese in the London cold stores. This year the stores are comparatively empty. Last year, as the result of strikes and lock-outs, the people at Home had little money to buy butter or cheese. Now, , things arc booming in the Old Country—the unemployment millions arc rapidly disappearing; our best ovenseas market is in a much more healthy state.

And even the butter ami cheese factories are finding they can pay out a reasonable bonus for last year’s output. When the Dairy Board’s sales are washed up for the year the returns ha turned out quite well —a positive surprise to many dairy farmers who had swallowed all the propaganda about the iniquitous dairy control. But cheese factories paying out Is sd, and butter factories in the neighbourhood of Is 4(1. make things much better than they seemed three months ago.

With cheese selling at round about Sid per lb up to the end of November those who have cows in should get somewhere about Is 7d per lb for butter-fat from the cheese factories. This will put many dairy farmers on their feet again, and the country storekeepers will smile once more.

But this depression has done a lot of good. It has led to much balancing of ledgers; much careful stocktaking of money received and money paid out. Never in the history of New’ Zealand has there been such a keen criticism and examination of our Government borrowing, our local body governing, our own personal borrowing. We have ,it into a jieculiar condition in so far as borrowing goes—and these time payments for luxuries, such as radio, gramophones, and pianos, arc positive snares for all sorts and conditions of folk.

To pay off land, a house, milking machine — even furniture — al) useful things, is quite praiseworthy; but to buy expensive luxuries on the instalment plan is to pay “through the nose” for things one should really wait for until the cash is available.

The hard times have made farmers look intently at ail the present wastes on the farm. ’The different attempts to cope with the wastage of young calves is only one of these phases. Hitherto on a farm the calf is skinned, ami the carcase thrown to the dogs. Now that was a wicked waste. From the legs one can boil out quantities of the very best calvesfoot jelly one could wish to see. Then there are the veils, which in the North Island are saved for the rennet extraction compr.ny. Lastly, there is 14 or 15 lb of lean meat. Certainly the day-old calf is not an attractive carcass, the calves should certainly be kept and decently fed for three or four days. But there it is—people in Great Britain and Belgium want the meat. We should try -ind supply them, and thus save the enormous waste that has gone on for so many years.

Of course, those who expect a pound for a calf must be disappointed. The North Island company that exported last year bought the calves at somewhere about Bs. They got a skin worth about ss, and the carcass, which on being boned, folded, and frozen was worth a few shillings. On being sold in Great Britain this veal brought a high enough price to return the freezing company only about a shilling a head profit cm each calf.

Calf-skin coats are also fashionable these days. Four 5s calf skins well cured, and with the hair cropped very close by a machine, made up ’uto a lady’s coat is rather attractive. Certainly it is distinctive. And if the fashion for crstlf skins could only be encouraged that would be a real saving of money to everyone concerned. The other day in Dunedin 1 saw a calf-skin coat —Jersey calf skins, with a broken white marking—and the collar looked suspiciously like a bare skin. I suppose it would be called Mongolian fox. A prophet has i»o honour in his own country, and neither has a fur. Most of our opossum skins go to Siberia : and the Mongolian foxes apparently all conic from Siberia! Nothing seems to be of real value until it has been shipped right round the world.

There is a good deal of talk about research these days. One industry that we should concentrate on is ou. fur industry. We have the climate to pr .duce good skins, and our rabbits and opossums, without any regulation or selection, have contributed largely to our exports. Certainly rabbits are becoming scarcer —which is a good job—but the opossum industry is only now coming into prominence. In some poor bush districts the opossum will soon be the greatest asset. Down Moko reta-Catlins way it is reported that two men have this season collected 860 pelts, which they have sold at Us per pelt, after paying royalty charges. In all the bush throughout Otago ami Southland only the very best selected bucks —of the right type and colour of fur —should be liberated. We can easily grade up the opossum skins, and in a few years build up in our great national parks of Fiordland, Otago,, and Westland an industry that has proved itself valuable mid beneficial to the country.

It is in days of low prices that we are forced to do national and personal stocktaking. Simply because our dairy produce may fetch a better price this year we should not let up. Economy should not be practised in fits and start' hut quietly and all the time. One cannot help wondering if prosperous times for farmers would bring real prosperity and a certain thriftiness, or would result in another boom in land prices and an excessive importation of American motor cal's. However, the crocuses are here; market prices look a good deal better: there is a feeling of buoyancy aud hopefulness astir in the land.