LIVE STOCK AND THE FARM

Southland Times, Issue 20615, 13 October 1928, Page 14 (Supplement)

LIVE STOCK AND THE FARM

MAKING OF FARMERS

WORK AT FLOCK HOUSE. INSTRUCTION IN ALL PHASES. THEORY WITH EXPERIENCE. Flock House, the institution of the Sheepowners’ Fund, near Palmerston North, has a very definite place in the movement for improved farming throughout the Dominion. There the sons of British seamen who were killed or incapacitated through war service are given an effective grounding in all phases of life on the land, -states the New Zealand Herald. Their after-in-struction on farms in different parts of the country is of the very best order, and the trustees of the fund aim at the eventual settlement on their own account of those trainees who prove themselves beyond doubt capable. As a thank-offering for the war-time services of the British Navy and Mercantile Marine, the sheepfarmers of New Zealand contributed a fund approximating £250,000, primarily for the establishment of a farm training centre in the Dominion for the sons of seamen. Already 397 boys have either passed through Flock House or are in residence there, and another draft of 30 is about to leave England. Girls’ Flock House, a sister institution at Palmerston North, has dealt with or is training 88 daughters of British seamen for country life, and 10 more trainees are about to leave England. Captain F. H. Billington, principal of Flock House, the boys’ institution, is well fitted as a scientific fanner to train the lads under his charge. For many years he was an instructor for the Irish Department of Agriculture, and holds the National Diplomas of Agriculture and Dairying. Varied Training System. Flock House by no means pretends to turn out efficient farmers. The boys are given about 32 weeks’ training in all phases of farm work, concerning which they receive the very best instruction and true practical experience. After leaving the institution they are apprenticed for three years to approved employers throughout the Dominion on dairy farms and sheep stations, where it is known that they will receive good treatment and experience. Each boy then has two years’ employment on wages. All the time two-thirds of his wages have been saved under the Flock House plan, and any lad who has proved himself an efficient farmer is by this time in a position to make a start on his own account, his savings being then subsidised by the trustees. Now bordering on the completion of its eighth year, the scheme has reached the stage when some of its trainees will become settlers. Instruction at Flock House is given in fortnightly phases. Each boy, for instance, has a fortnight at dairying, followed by two weeks at, perhaps, agriculture, including ploughing, draining and fencing. A spell at tree-planting, work among sheep, top dressing, or some other task wherein he takes an active part, follows. Always he is under the care of an expert instructor in each branch. Latest Methods Taught. There is hardly any field of experience which is not gained at Flock House. The property comprises about 8000 acres, of which 5500 acres are in production, the balance of 2500 acres being largely sand dune country on the coast, where planting with marram grass to arrest the drift, followed by the planting of pines and macrocarpas, is proving most successful. An area of flax is being extended, much gorse and scrub has been cleared and extensive drainage work done. On the dune country, keeping stock off the sandy formation has aided natural regeneration wonderfully, and planting with marram and trees is effecting real consolidation. In dairying, the grade herd of about 90 head is tested on the estate for milk yield, the trainees evincing the keenest interest in the work, although naturally it is impossible to look for any milk production records where the cows are being milked and tended by novices. Every care is taken, however, to teach the boys the latest and most efficient methods in dairying, and in this, as in agriculture and sheepfarming, they go out to the country well equipped with scientific knowledge which they learn to apply through subsequent years of experience. Boys in Auckland Province. A large proportion of the trainees are placed in the Auckland Province. There are Flock House boys at the Bay of Islands, Maungaturoto, Kaipara, Rodney, Helensville, Awanui, Waiheke Island, and throughout the Waikato and the King Country. Flock House continues to send out trained farmer lads to the country at the rate of 90 a year. It is a very welcome leavening of potential English settlers with an assured degree of proficiency and knowledge of scientific farming. It is estimated that most of the lads at the expiry’ of their terms of training at Flock House, the three years’ following apprenticeship, and the two years of working for wages, will have at their credit about £250, which the fund will subsidise to bring it up to £4OO or £450 to provide a small “starting” capital. It is now’ hoped to find some landowner prepared to cut up a block of country where the older trainees may be started on their own account in a small way. Mr L. S. Amery, Secretary of State for the Dominions, when he visited Flock House during his New Zealand tour, spoke enthusiastically of the scheme as a medium for turning out efficient English land settlers. He suggested that when the supply of seamen’s dependants ran out in about six years’ time, the institution should be perpetuated as a national organisation to continue similar work in training young English immigrants, provided that it remained under the present excellent control and not under Government supervision. Nationalising Flock House. In that case the British Government would extend its Canadian settlement conditions of providing half the cost if the New Zealand Government provided the other half. As yet the matter has gone no further, but there is visualised in the 8000 acres Flock House estate a permanent national institution for the training of young English boys and men in the latest scientific farm practice in an environment and on conditions conducive to the attainment of the very best practical results. It is a frequently-voiced complaint of those interested in the Flock House scheme that at its inception the Government took £35,000 from the fund by way of income tax. The institution continues to pay £7OO annually in land tax and local rates in spite of the national character of its work, and in face of repeated representations to Parliament. The functions of Girls' Flock House, more recently established for the training of sisters of the Flock House boys, are, perhaps, somewhat remote from the subject of scientific farming; yet there is a relation. These girls are grounded in farm domestic duties, including gardening, milking, dairy work, bee-keeping and orchard work, in all of which they evince the liveliest interest. They are taught to ride, and generally endeavours are made to imbue them with the “land sense” in order that they may be fit help-mates to farming families before or to farmers after marriage. In five minutes the bidding rose from £lOOO to £27,000 for sixteenth century stained-glass windows from the chapel at Ashridge Park, Hertfordshire. The glass, which was specially hung and lighted in the auction room, at a cost of £5OO, was sold to Mr. Fred Fox, who declared that it was “saved for England.’ 1

SKIM MILK AND WHEY

VALUABLE HUMAN FOOD. DEVELOPING NEW INDUSTRIES. The possibilities of utilizing the human food values of skim milk formed one of the most interesting topics of discussion at the World Dairy Congress in London last June. Dr. F. H. McDowall, who recently arrived at Palmerston North to take up the position of chemist to the Dairy Research Institute at Massey Agricultural College, was present. Discussing the conference, Dr. McDowall said that in the past perhaps too much value had been placed upon the value of milk fats to the oversight of milk solids and mineral constituents. Already, in the United States of America, bakers were using quite a large amount of dried skim milk in the manufacture of bread, and for the past five years the consumption of skim milk in one form or another had been steadily increasing. It appeared destined to become quite an important article in human diet. In the light of recent experiments, it seemed that in the past a human food of very material value had been largely wasted. When it ’ was remembered that nine pounds of powder could be made from 10 gallons of milk it could be seen the development of any industry using skim milk would, in the aggregate, mean something of substantial profit to the farmer and the country. Experiments made in England in the feeding of schoolchildren on skim milk solids had shown it resulted in marked improvement in health and weight. A somewhat similar problem in which Dr. McDowall displayed an interest was the utilization of whey. In some cases in America it was being made into a product which was given a trade name, but which might well be termed a form of cheese. Already there was a certain consumptive demand for it, and further research along this by-path of the dairying industry might well yield interesting a-d valuable results. BUSH-SICK COUNTRY VIEW OF DEPARTMENT. “We have now reached a stage of farming in bush-sick country where we are justified in looking for fairly satisfactory results,” states Mr. J. Lyons, director of the Livestock Division, in the annual report of the Department of Agriculture. “Judicious manuring and top-dressing, the growing of root crops and the saving of hay, together with the use of citrate or iron and ammonia as a curative agent when an animal becomes sick, or as a preventive, are practically all that is required for successful dairy farming. This method of farming bush-sick country has met with a considerable amount of success; in fact, greater than was anticipated some years ago. Any ordinary, intelligent farmer, with a knowledge of this country could take over the Government farm at Mamaku and run it as a dairy farm with every prospect of his operations meeting with success. “In the light of our experience, however, we are hardly yet justified in advising’ settlers to take up this land as a farming proposition. Personally, I would hesitate before giving such advice, on account of the fact that too much capital and time would have to be spent in bringing the land into the condition where stock can be carried at a profit, and during this period the occupant has to live and spend more money than the soil produces. What is wanted is some cheap method whereby the land can be brought to a state where it will carry stock with a reasonable amount of success and afford the settler a living at the same time. It has been proved that the above-mentioned iron salt acts as a curative agent when cattle are suffering from bush-sickness, but it has not been proved that the addition of iron salts to the soil will act as a preventive. It has been demonstrated that top-dressing with suitable phosphates will, in time, give fairly satisfactory results, but the process is too slow and costly for the average settler, who must get a living from the land. As stated previously, a cheap method is wanted, and if this can be attained by the aid of iron salts to the soil without the addition of phosphates, then a better future can be predicted for the bush-sick country. Further experiments in this direction are being carried out.” CONFIDENCE IN WOOL AN OPTIMISTIC “LONG VIEW.” “Taking the long view in regard to wool production, the promise of remunerative results is sufficiently indicated to encourage every possible extension of the pastoral industry in Australia and New Zealand,” states Dalgety’s Annual Wool Review. “That the world’s production is not keeping pace with consumption is now beyond question, and so long as there are no big upheavals to interfere with the working of ordinary economic laws, the trend of values seems likely to be, in the main, upward. On the other hand, costs of wool producing are steadily increasing, and the shortage of wool is in a large measure made up by the ever-increasing admixture of artificial fibres. During the past few years, there has been a steady consumption of stocks of manufactured goods all over the world, and not only may it be said that to-day there is no undue surplus of stocks anywhere, but also distributors are nearer the loom than ever before in the history of wool manufacturing. This is to a very great extent the result of the cautious hand-to-mouth policy which has prevailed for some time past.” Demand Above Fashion Vagaries. Improved selling organization tending to stabilize prices, is another factor cited in the favour of growers, and the review points out the world’s wool using population was increasing steadily, while production was not keeping pace. The confidence of the moment was thoroughly justified from every point of view, and looked like continuing for at least another selling season. The vagaries of fashion, an unknown quantity, always presented an element of difficulty in gauging future prospects for wool, but it was worth while remembering that fashion was in no sense responsible for to-day’s wool prices, and that, especially in regard to women’s clothing, the consumption of wool was really at low-water mark. “Short skirts and a tendency to wear silk and artificial silk have not helped the wool industry, while a reversion of fashion to woollen costumes would immediately mean an appreciable swelling of the demand for the raw material. A few inches on to the length of skirts—a possible style of the future— will mean in the aggregate an increased demand to the extent of many millions of yards of cloth. It seems reasonable to assume that fashion is likely, sooner or later, to bring woollen clothing for women into popularity, and the effect on the demand for wool when this happens will be appreciable.” Effect of Artificial Fibres. In another section the review states that in spite of the enormous expansion of the production of artificial silk, and although new “substitutes” for wool are frequently heard of, the artificial fibres do not appear to have affected the demand for natural wool. On the contrary, the view had been expressed that the increased production of artificial silk had helped the demand for wool by providing manufacturers with a

medium for cheapening the cost of the finished article. Raw wool still enjoyed an almost unprecedented demand, and continued the acknowledged ideal raw material for the clothing of mankind. The improbability of Australia ever establishing a “futures” wool market —to carry produce until it is wanted —is emphasized. The gambling operations attendant upon • such schemes and the experiences of manufacturers with such Continental markets, it is stated, make the contingency happily remote. While there was no disposition to slacken the search for a better woolpack, it apeared as if the grower at present had no I option but to use the jute variety. The alli wool pack, on account of its increased cost , and the fear that it might not stand hard usage, was not regarded favourably at the 1 producing end, and the paper wire pack had met with unfavourable criticism. The nearest solution of jute pack troubles appeared to lie in its treatment or in lining it with some woollen material. How Buyers May Act Reference is made to a diminution of the speculative element in the wool trade,, due largely to the risks involved in speculating in wool at high prices and the decentraliz- ; ation of the world’s wool manufacturing machinery. | Many buyers held off in the early part of ' last season, believing the high prices must i collapse, instead of which they firmed. | Those late buyers, who finally bought expensively, might this season well reverse ' policy and enter the market with more freedom from the start, while those who had done best by early buying would be anxious to repeat their experience. Whatever the development in seasons immediately ahead, it was patent that Russia did not intend to be permanently dependent upon outside sources for raw material for her textile industries. The i Soviet. Government had approved plans for j the development of wool production in ! whole aspect of affairs in another decade. I A plan had been formulated for crossing • Merino rams with the coarse-woolled ewes in peasants’ flocks, and the Commissariat of Agriculture during 1927 bought 11,000 Merino sheep in American and 600 in Germany. It was clear, however, that for years to come Russian mills would largely depend on imported wool. Industry in New Zealand. Reviewing sales last season in New Zealand centres and the Dominion generally, the following statement of a prominent lecturer on wool is quoted: “Fine crossbreds from New Zealand are a very good type, those from the North Island being more robust than those from the South. . . The fine cross-breds of New Zealand are very keenly competed for, because, apart form their generally well-got-up apearance, they are often light in earthy matter and free from vegetable. This has a value for American mills and for manufacture of highclas goods in the Home trade and on the Cont inent.”