ON THE LAND

Taranaki Daily News, 4 August 1934, Page 12 (Supplement)

ON THE LAND

BRITAIN AND HER FARMS THE HOME FRONT. (No. 2of series.—By Quentin Pope). The move of Great Britain towards greater self-sufficiency in matters of food supply is not the outcome of a wholly logical policy, but part of a general . movement towards greater integration of the country economically. Politicians have talked of beginning a policy to assist the British farmer for generations past, but not until to-day has there actually been a definite line of action towards conserving the home market. In a nationalist world Britain has chosen to adapt herself to the times, but the farming policy which she has laid down has not been the outcome of forethought and gradual development of all her farms to a situation where they may, at a pinch, supply her needs. It has rather been the acceptance of the present trends of farming and the endeavour to stabilise the existing position. At the back of the new agricultural policy there is, however, an undercurrent of uneasiness. Britain’s unquestioned supremacy at sea has vanished. She voluntarily relinquished it after the war rather than alienate the United States, and to-day she is as anxious as ever to avoid a race of armaments which would inevitably be precipitated if she sought to recover that old naval power. This course may have spelt AngloAmerican co-operation, but it has also meant that the future of the long searoutes which bring Britain her food has become very uncertain. In such a case the more self-sufficient the island becomes the better. A second factor is the decline in British investment overseas. The old system whereby Britain was the workshop of half the world and the newer countries were charged with the task of feeding the toilers in that workshop in return for their manufactured goods has suffered serious change. With this change, which has been progressive, more self-sufficient communities have arisen overseas and have set up demands for British finance to aid their development. But even before the world crisis there were signs that this call for British capital was diminishing. The era of railway development, eminently belonging to Britain, for instance, was yielding to the day of road transport for which the capital goods came from the United States Thus another link between Britain and her old markets was weakened. DEMAND FOR FRESH FOOD. Finally there have been changes in the general attitude of the British to their own producers. There has arisen a demand for fresh food as against preserved food. Probably this will be found to be a material factor in the demand for Danish butter rather than New Zealand: it is believed to be more fresh. Whatever the medical basis for this, there is also an idea that fresh food is better than preserved food. Secondly, greater attention has been focussed on the need for regular supplies of foodstuffs, a question which is both political and has a bearing on this matter of fresh supplies. Thirdly, it has been realised that agriculture is one of the greatest industries in the country, that it is the third largest employer of labour, that it stands fourth in production, and that it makes use of more land than all other industries added together. And, finally, with the decline in the manufacturing industries the hope has arisen that agriculture will prove capable of absorbing some of the millions who have lost permanent employment in other fields. For such a policy it must be confessed that Britain’s farming position is badly balanced. Since the war, bread has formed one tenth of the total supply of food to her workers, yet over the whole of England and Wales wheat represents only about 4 per cent, of the total produce sold, and the actual acreage , has been steadily shrinking. To-day Britain produces less than 1,500,000 tons of wheat out of a total consumption of 6,750,000 tons, and about 500,000 tons of that is devoted to seed and poultry and other farming purposes. But this has been due to the fact that with the collapse of corn prices (they fell from £24,000,000 in 1925 to £12,000,000 for the average of 1930-31) the importance of stock and of stock products has been rising. To meet high costs the farmer has been doing without labour and introducing machinery. The great majority, however, are laying their lands down in grass, some retaining their sheep, others introducing dairy cattle. The output of the farm per acre is less on these lines, but the necessity to employ labour is also less. •BRITAIN’S DAIRY CATTLE.

To-day live stock, milk and dairy produce furnish 61 per cent, of the total output of the farms of England and Wales. In 1931 New Zealand farmers possessed/29,000,000 sheep, while farmers in England, Scotland and Wales owned 25,500,000. In the same year Britain’s cattle reached 7,200,000 against our 3,200,000; her dairy cows alone almost reached the total of all our cattle. And in- British agriculture stock and stocks products rate as three times more important than all farm crops, and five times more important than vegetables, fruit and glasshouse produce which is an important division of the newer farming enterprises. Tire position may be read at a glance from the following table of percentages which gives the proportions in which different classes of farming contributed to a total production of £196,700,000 in England and Wales. The addition of Scotland does not change the proportion in any noticeable way save for the fact that almost none of the raising of fruit and vegetables is done there. The total production of Scotland was £48,700,000 in 1931-32. Farm Production in England and Wales. Per Cent. Live stock 33 Milk and dairy produce 28 Poultry and eggs 9 Wool 5 Com 6 Other crops 12.5 Vegetables, fruit, flowers, etc 11 100 A great deal of the production in the milk industry, of course, is for fresh milk, which is sold direct from farmers to consumers. About one-third of the present total is converted into butter and cheese. Great stimulation of this particular side of farming may be anticipated because it is recognised in England that the demand for milk is much less than it should be. and that the method in which it is delivered to the customer is much inferior to the manner employed in the United States. The great growth of cattle in Britain in the last fifty years, the fact that arable land is shrinking, and that even in the wheat growing districts (the Eastern counties) the com sold off the farm represents only about one-twelfth of the total production, the further fact that the farmer has discovered that with manuring he can obtain up to 600 gallons of milk per acre if he fences off his farm into small paddocks and grazes them in rotation all show that meat and milk .will be more.

than ever the main products in future. In other words, ordinary economic development is bringing the British farmer into competition with the Argentine, with Denmark and with the Dominions. However, there are important limitations to the development of the dairying industry. The chief of them is the lack of machinery, the fact that much more attention is needed .in the winter when the stock have to be fed and housed, the winter lack of grass in some counties and the need for providing expensive foods and the greater man-power needed to run a farm, relative to conditions in this country. Hand in hand with this greater attention to stock is going the development of a class of farming which in the past has received insufficient attention—the growing of fruit and vegetables. The English appetite has undergone definite changes, the consumption of fruit has risen by more than 50 per cent, since the war, and the demand for vegetables has also increased. The farmers who have determined to concentrate their efforts upon these products have proved so successful that there is growing attention to the possibilities- of raising high-grade fruit and vegetable crops. The existence of large industrial populations, good, fast transport and small holdings conspire to make this class of farming profitable.

SCIENCE IN FARMING DISEASES OF CROPS. LEAF-ROLL AND MOSAIC. It is now recognised that the greater part of the so-called degeneration of potatoes in the past, necessitating the securing of seed from southern districts in New Zealand, and northern districts in Great Britain, was due chiefly to leaf-roll, says Dr. K. M. Curtis, chief of the mycology department of Cawthorn Institute, in a bulletin on virus diseases of tobacco and potatoes. Loss from this disease should be reckoned in terms of both the current and the second season’s crops. That of the current season is frequently reduced in yield and in size of individual tubers, while in the second season plants raised from infected tubers are dwarfed, and the crop is still further reduced or wholly lacking. Diseased plants are characterised by a rolling upward of the leaflet, and by rigidity and brittleness of texture in both leaf and stalk. The plant is sometimes dwarfed, and is a paler green than usual. Tubers are few in number, usually small, and when infection has occurred early in the season exhibit “net-necrosis” (killing and discoloration of the net-work of vascular strands that lie beneath the skin). Tubers affected with net-necrosis usually give rise to plants showing more intense symptoms in their leaves, and a greater reduction in crop, than did the parent plant. TRANSMISSION OF DISEASE. Transmission of leaf-roll is brought about by the propagation of infected tubers and by the work of sucking insects, notably the peach aphid. The aphid migrates in numbers from plant to plant, and also freely visits weeds related to the potato, that may be similarly subject to leaf-roll. The actual picking up of the virus and transmission to a new plant take only a few hours, but the complete process of leaf-roll induction requires at least 54 hours, for the virus needs to incubate first in the insect’s body and then in the healthy plant. The aphid can inoculate a whole series of healthy plants after sucking one diseased plant without requiring further return to the latter. As in most mosaics the main characteristic of the disease in potatoes is a mottling of light and dark green on the leaves of the plant, Dr. Curtis proceeds. In this host the mottling is often indistinct and is usually accompanied by a slight wrinkling of the leaf surface. The plant may be slightly dwarfed and the tubers are usually reduced in size. EFFECTS ON PLANT. Though the effect on the plant may appear slight, the reduction in tuber yield, even in a seemingly slightly affected crop, may range as high as 20 per cent Some varieties act as symptomless carriers, having the virus in their sap yet themselves showing no symptoms. A new variety, the Katahdin, reported to be satisfactorily resistant to the disease, has been bred this year in America. The disease is spread by the use of infected tubers and by aphids. As it takes only about 10 days for the virus to travel from the green top into the tuber, roguing, to be effective, should be carried out before aphids are present in numbers. The potato, the doctor points out, is liable to a number of other virus diseases, of which rugose mosaic and streak are especially notable. In the former the plant is stunted and bushy; the leaf-. lets are puckered, have downward-tend-ing edges and are a darker green than usuaL Streak of potato, as understood at present, may comprise more than one disease. Some varieties are symptomless carriers of streak. In others the disease consists of a spotting and streaking of foliage and stalk, together with a superficial marking of the tubers, especially near the eyes, which may become “blind.” In other varieties, again, the leaves may show spotting, but neither leaves nor stem any streaks, and the tuber symptoms may also be absent. CONTROL OF VIRUS DISEASES. Thirty years ago private growers in Holland, recognising the necessity for improving the standard of potato stocks, initiated a movement for the selection of good strains and elimination of poor. Since then the agricultural departments of various Governments, including that of New Zealand, have either adopted or advocated similar systems of improvement, grading and registration. Absolute freedom from virus disease seldom occurs in potato fields, but the purchaser of seed from a crop of high registration-grade at least buys with the assurance that not more than a definite, small percentage of virus disease was present in the crop at the time of registration. Registration has been in force in this country, for some years, but greater advantage should be taken of the system than is done at present. When our seed-purchasers as a whole unite in demanding only certified seed, a raising of the general standard of the potato crop throughout the country must •ensue, the doctor concludes. Further, though the maximum improvement of stocks already available should be sought by means of registered seed, the ultimate goal in potato culture is the use of wholly virus-free stocks. When such stocks become available to the general grower, as is hoped they shortly will, still greater improvement in our potato standard may be expected with reasonable certainty in the not-distant future.