BREAKING IN A FARM

Taranaki Daily News, 25 November 1930, Page 6

BREAKING IN A FARM

HOW SOLDIER SUCCEEDED HEAVY HANDICAP'S OVERCOME, ''" A RECORD OF HARD WORK. Holding that there is no reason why Others should not do considerably better than he has done by avoiding the mistakes he made, an Auckland returned soldier •farmer has written a detailed account of the experiences through which he has now won to a comparatively secure position. It has practically all been done, he says, since he returned from the war, suffering from ill-health and with an ailing wife to care for. He maintains that any young man, fit and well, and with a wife to help him should succeed easily. on the land. The writer started with no capital, says the New Zealand Herald. On taking over the section he cut about 15 acres of the best of the scrub,, burned it off in the autumn and grassed and fenced it. He enlisted at the outbreak of the war, and paid for his grass seed and wire out of his pay. When discharged 15 months later he bought a tent and camped on the farm. His brother gave him a couple of heifer calves 5n payment for grazing. There was some "timber on the place, and he got it cut and hauled to a mill where enough was sawn to enable him to build a one-roomed shanty. That winter he ring-fenced the whole fbrm, paying for the wire with his military pay. He fenced in the shanty, planted an orchard and did some clearing. From October to Christmas he went shearing, after which he went to Sydney to get married. He added a room to the shanty and started milking the following spring. He gradually increased the held, year by year, bought two horses and a plough, and turned over about 20 acres. ' MILKING IN THE OPEN. After the epidemic of 1918 his wife became seriously,ill and had to return to her people in Sydney for a time. In the meantime the husband finished the house and put the 20 acres in grass. For four years he milked his oows in the open until his hands gave out, and he had to build a shed and put in machines. Then came the slump, and again his wife had to return to Sydney. Next season was a bad one, and the cows, of which he had 14, did little good. To get schooling for his little boy he left the farm and took to sharemilking. There was little money in it, but by letting his rent get into arrears. he managed in three years to get ; most of his debts paid. When he returned to the farm after an absence of five years he found it had gone back, but he arranged with the dairy company for a supply of manure and gave the place a good dressing. He is doing fairly well now and has a large job on hand with improvements. He is milking 22 cows and expects to milk 30 next year. In four or five years he hopes to have the whole place in grass and doing well. Of his herd of Jerseys the farmer says there is not a single “dud” in it, and there is only one in the herd that he himself did not breed. ‘‘At present I am finding it a pretty hard struggle,” he writes, “but I cafi see daylight ahead and am confident of success.” . “MY TWO HANDS.” “Only for a few months did I have amy help on the place. My two hands have done practically the lot, ploughing, fencing, draining, scrub-cutting and milking. I have been financed by the Crown Lands Hoard, and at present have a farm of 240 acres, with a mortgage of £BlO and a £4OO bill, of sale over the stock consisting of 25 diking cows, a bull, seven yearling heifers, two horses and four calves.” He values the cows at about £l's each. The house on the farm could not be built for £OOO. The farm is well fenced and well watered, and has been valued at £7 an acre. Unimproved, as he got it, it was worth less than £l. Coming now to practical advice arising out of his own experience, the writer says that in the first place scrub has to be burned. If it is tall it must be cut in the winter, burned about March or April, and sown in May. On his first burn of a few acres of flat ground he eowed paspalum, rye, clover, brown top and lotus angustissimus and major, and he has very good pasture now. Where a good burn can be got with the cut scrub that mixture will take well, and if it is top-dressed good feed will follow. DEALING WITH SCRUB. Where the scrub is short and full of feffn he burns off about September before the sap rises. When a few fine days come after some frosts is a good time. That checks the tea-tree, and by next winter the rodt fibre has rotted. The small sticks can be easily knocked over, gathered and burnt, and the ground will plough very easily. This ground must be ploughed to get rid of the tea-tree. Old worked kauri gum land' on his farm, he ploughed in the winter, and i«. giving it one. cut. with the discs now. When the rain comes and he wants to sow, it will not take much working to be ready for the seed. When putting down this class of country in grass he prefers for manuring blood and bone and super, at least three hundredweight to the acre, with slag as top-dressing afterwards. He has had excellent results with this treatment. When sowing grass on fallow he sows oats with the grass, as it protects the grass, makes extra feed and is the finest tonic and healthgiver that he knows for milking cows, tspedi'ally at calving time. y BREEDING HIS OWN OOWS. • On one point this farmer is very particular. He believes in breeding his own cows. He got a few good ones at the start and a purebred bull. He has always had purebred bulls, and by so doing has kept clear of disease. He does not keep his calves in shed for more than a few days until he can get them to drink. Then he tethers them near the hedge in a sheltered paddoc 1 - and covers them at night for a month or more. A slag bag cut down the rade and bottom makes an excellent cover, which he slips on at night and off -n the morning when the weather is fine. He prefers that to housing them. By the time the calf is too big for the bag flhe weather is usually warm enough for it to do withopt. Fern country is excellent for pigs. With pig-p fences they can run and forage for themselves, and they wiU fatten. He likes to keep the plough busy, and wen the little ones will thrive. They will pull out the large earthworms and the fern roots. Breeding sows need green feed, grass, oats and turnips as well as the fern. A mob of pigs running in the fem will easily nay for the ploughing. ' “This I have written not in any spirit of boastfulness,” concludes this determined and resourceful pioneer, “but to show what can be done, and how to do it. If anyone wants to know anythin’ further Tet him communicate with me, °and I shall gladly answer him if I can.”