The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. MONDAY, MAY 25, 1914. NEED FOR GOOD FARMING.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIX, Issue 28, 25 May 1914, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. MONDAY, MAY 25, 1914. NEED FOR GOOD FARMING.

The recently cabled conclusion, as to the world's shortage of meat is by no means new and for a long times past such a shortage has been predicted. Christchurch "News" recalls the fact that some years ago the Hon. Thos. Mackenzie, New Zealand's High Commissioner in London, based prophecies that were singularly verified by events as to enhanced prices of wool and meat upon calculations as to the increase in the meat-eating and wool-wearing peoples and the decrease in the flocks and herds, countries like North America, once prolific sources of supply, becoming themselves consumers of other people's supplies. The steady appreciation of wool has gone on, and the appreciation of beef is becoming daily more in evidence. It supplies quite sufficient reason for the action of the American meat firms with their enormous responsibilities as suppliers in extending their operations first to Argentine and now to Australia and New Zealand, since Argentina and the adjacent pastoral countries have themselves arrived at the stage in which demand for export and home consumption is ahead of supply* It is but a few years ago when little was thought of Argentine meat as opposed to New Zealand mutton and Queensland beef, but the ranchero's paid record prices for the best strains of stock, and bo improved their quality, while the improvements in handling the meat introduced by the Trust helped the marketing. Our contemporary, further discussing the matter says:— N T ow we see the result in the relations of demand and supply. A curious feature of the "Daily Mail's" enquiry is yh&b it shows as to the effect'of the short-sighted policy of EuglUh dairy fartnJCf i" killing their oalres. That'ws had parked in New

Zealand, where the Taranaki dairy farmers slaughtered tons of thousands of calves yearly, so as to catch the last possible penny of the milk cheque, and suffered afterwards in a shortage of dairy stock, as well as, in'the shortage of killing beasts. The moral of the whole matter and the developments going on the world over is the increasing importance of the farmer individually, and of the farmers, to the State, and therefore the importance of the most skilled farming and of training the farmer in the science of his profession. It is a long cry from the pre-freezing days, when sheep were often almost valueless to the present—and all the outlook i s for increased demand and increased profit for the products of mixed farming. The man with a few hundreds of acres, or thousands, according to the country, who can turn out beef and mutton and lambs, wool and hides, growing crops to help them, and consuming them on his farm, with side lines in systematised apple and poultry culture, and dairying, will ten years hence have a business as regular and as organised as any city business, and very much more profitable than most. Every development in the past ten years has been to increase the importance and prospects of the farmer and the need for good farming.