YOUNG FARMERS’ CLUB

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 63, Issue 4491, 17 October 1941, Page 4

YOUNG FARMERS’ CLUB

AN INTERESTING DAY. PRACTICAL LESSONS. Tuesday last was a very educational day for the members of the Young Farmers’ Club and others who visited Messrs 11. Rhodes and Son’s farm ai Paterangi. At 12.45 p.m. there assembled a+ Mr Rhodes’s woolshed about 20 members and several of the advisory committee and a dozen or so of the agriculture boys from the Te Awamutu Intermediate High School. The party made a tour of the sheep yards and wool shed where Mr Rhodes demonstrated how to use bluegum bark as splints for a sheep with a broken leg. Four Southdown rams were paraded and the host explained to the audience the good points to look for and the bad points to beware of, in selecting rams for the breeding of fat lambs.

A demonstration was given on docking lambs with modern equipment. Mr Rhodes said mortality due to afterdocking complaints was very low in their flocks.

At this stage the party boarded three cars and a truck and commenced a tour of the farm which consists of 840 acres of first-class farming land. The first halt was on a high knoll about a quarter of a mile from the starting point. The view obtained from this point, which overlooked the fertile Mangapiko valley which sloped away to the South West, thickly dotted with clumps of trees and flocks of sheep and cattle, was a sight to be remembered by all who saw it. From this look-out Mr Rhodes pointed out his boundaries which were nearly all visible. He explained that the gorse in the far distance was nof on his property. Mr Rhodes has reason to be proud of the fact there is not one bit of gorse growing on the whole of his 840 acres. In answer to a question as to what this country was like when he first started farming it, Mr Rhodes said when he took up this block of land 43 years ago he had to graze his team of working horses out because there was not sufficient grass on the 800 acres to feed them. The country was a dense wilderness of ti-tree, gorse and fern infested with rabbits. It was not easy for one to visualise that scene 43 years ago if he to-day looked down the valley and saw the same land carrying a good sward of English grasses, well fenced, subdivided and watered, having abundance of shelter hedges and belts of trees and above all, a stock carrying-capacity equal to the best in the Waikato. Mr Rhodes is truly a lover of trees. He said the man who planted a tree created a thing of value. The party carried on to the lower levels, passing through some fine flocks of ewes and lambs grazed on pastures kept in control by black Polled Angus bullocks. The party halted on the banks of the Mangapiko stream to view the remains of the old Tauwhare Pa. claimed by the Maoris to be the best preserved pa existing in New Zealand. Those interested in the Maori culture showed keen interest in this relic. A mile down stream on the opposite bank, the location of Waiore Pa was also seen. Mr Rhodes pointed out the approximate spot where, the soldiers were massacred in the years past. The gathering was keenly interested in an outsize in the shape of a topdressing machine which is housed beneath the tanks of a pumping shed on the river flats. Mr Rhodes explained that this machine was 16 feet overall and would hold half a ton of. fertiliser. The method of getting this machine through gates was quite simple, each wheel was run up onto a skid and then. drawn through the gates long ways. At 2.30 o’clock the party arrived back at the homestead, having passed through several miles of paddocks, all of which had wooden gates, swung and painted. After inspecting the lovely gardens shrubs and native trees surrounding the homestead, the party was served a very nice afternoon tea by Miss Rhodes and Mrs Stan Rhodes, which was much appreciated by all. The Club chairman (Mr 1. Fraser) thanked Mr Rhodes on behalf of the Club and those present for the enjoyable and educational day he had given all, adding that members had been looking forward to this field day for the past two years. In conclusion he paid special thanks to the ladies for the nice afternoon tea.

In replying Mr Rhodes said if members had enjoyed themselves that joy had been equally shared by his family and himself.