STOCK ROUTES

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 20103, 9 May 1935, Page 8

STOCK ROUTES

MR BURNETT ON THE QUESTION SCOPE FOR ACTION “The other Sunday on my way out to the opening of the Soldiers’ Memorial Gates at Milford,” said Mr T. D. Burnett to a representative of “The Timaru Herald,” yesterday, “it came vividly under my notice the great amount of unnecessary knocking about one of our chief assets, fat lambs, receive on occasion, simply through failure on the part of our administration to supply adequate facilities for droving our valuable stock along the main roads.

“At the main highway bridge at Washdyke—a bad bottleneck —a mob of approximately four hundred first grade fat lambs had the right of way over a bridge that in these days should be three times its width. Three cars, including my own, had crossed the bridge, and were patiently waiting to one side so as to give the two drovers in charge every opportunity to get the mob to string over the bridge. The leading drover, a very energetic fellow, had just succeeded after very con l siderable trouble in getting a cut of forty lambs or so on to the bridge, and was proceeding to get the main mob to follow, when a fourth car driven by a man Innocent of handling stock appeared on the other side of the bridge, and in spite of warnings and remonstrances from the leading drover, persisted in coming over the bridge and driving the leading lambs back into the mob again. Personally I did not blame the drover a bit for going forward and giving the motorist a faithful description of his shortcomings. Then the battle for the bridge began once more, dogs barking, more cars honking in the distance, other cars in desperation forced to take the shallow ford at the side of the bridge, the poor lambs stupefied and half paralysed, the drovers desperate and rapidly losing their tempers. And next year the retention or loss of a couple of pounds per head may mean all the difference between a profit and, a loss to the owner producer. Then we proceeded on our way and met a startling contrast. We came to the two chain wide road stretching from beyond the Washdyke to near the Arowhenua. There we passed mobs of fat lambs making for the works contentedly grazing along the grassy chain wide strip, absolutely undisturbed by the constant stream of cars passing along the tar-sealed highway. It struck me more than forcibly that Sunday that South Canterbury should prepare for the times ahead and provide better stock routes and greater and better facilities for handling the asset that this year is keeping the country from being altogether ditched. Why not do something towards making roads adjacent to main highways recognised stock routes? And seeing that Sunday is now recognised as car-day why not open up the possibilities of holding stock sales other than on Mondays? And why not realise that travelling stock require water more than stock in their home paddocks, and that in a dry season there is no running water available for stock making use of the main highway between above Fairlie and Waitawa? Certainly not if all riverside properties exercised their fencing rights. “And while we are at it why not consider the periodical liming of our saleyards and sheep accommodation paddocks to prevent the spread of foot rot and intestinal worms? And while we are at it why does not South Canterbury wake ‘up and realise what its share in the 2,000,000 unaccountable loss m the sheep stocks of the Dominion mean to the sheep producers of South Canterbury? Why not? Think of the losses from pulpy kidney in the spring, and the losses in the autumn from hogget ailments? Two million every year! Necessity for Research “Speaking as a member of the Agricultural and Pastoral Committee of the House of Representatives, let me say that there is every need for such a Bill as the Scientific and Industrial Research Bill which was introduced into the House last spring. But it was presented in an unfortunate and impracticable form. Seeing that we have a highly equipped Government laboratory at Wallaceville, outside Wellington, with an excellent staff of specialists, that we have Lincoln College and Massey College similarly equipped for research and investigation, and that there is what might be styled an Empire wool research station at Torridon in Yorkshire, and that wool research and stock diseases investigation are of Dominion importance, I objected on principle to a sectional tax like a wool levy. If more money is required for research then it should come from the Consolidated Fund for further assistance to the Wallaceville laboratory and the two colleges, and also our share of running Torridon. In any case these are matters of vital importance to South Canterbury, and should be taken up seriously by the four agricultural societies, the various branches of the Farmers’ Union, and the Crown Tenants’ Association, and the Stock Firms’ Association. “And while they are at it, it is highly important to begin now, right early, to consider next season’s wool sales. Apparently there is a sinister outside influence at work inimical to the continuance of the Timaru wool sales. What scope for a Producers Council in South Canterbury? What need for a united voice from its 43,000 people! The heads of the Agricultural Department have agreed that Mr Mulholland’s figures showing that the Dominion in 10 years has lost unaccountably 20,000,000 sheep is probably correct. Timaru’s wool sales are threatened. There is in the air talk of centralised shipping, or attaining that end by differential freighting. There is now with us a new age for the producers.”