FARM TOPICS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVI, Issue 21324, 19 April 1939, Page 3

FARM TOPICS

WHOLE FLOCK SOLD

The noted Brancepeth Southdown Stud, owned by Mr R. F. R. Beetham, Masterton, which is number two in the New Zealand Southdown Breeders' Flock Book has just been completely dispersed by the sale to a New South Wales, and a Western Australian buyer, of the whole flock.

PUBLICITY FOR BUTTER

Smoe time ago it was proposed that Australia should join an international publicity campaign to improve the sale of butter on the United Kingdom market. The proposal was to advertise butter generally on the lines adopted for the Australian butter campaign, viz., “There’s no substitute for butter.” The proposal has now been advanced a stage further, and was brought into discussion at the meeting of the Australian Dairy Produce Board in Sydney this month. It is now expected that at least the three big exporters of butter —New Zealand, Denmark, and Australia—will participate in the campaign. SHEEPFARMERS’ PROBLEMS “A new generation of sheep farmers has arisen in New Zealand since the beginning of the post-war period and the problems and difficulties have increased with every year. The squatter has disappeared; in his place is the runholder with his 2000 to 5000 sheep and a host of handicaps which his predecessor never knew. I sympathise with the New Zealand woolgrower to-day and would wish that the average city dweller would show a little more understanding in the matter also.”—Mr E. C. Stewart, a visitor from New South Wales, in an interview. STUDY OF BIRD LIFE A movement which, it is hoped, will result in the formation of a Dominionwide society to study bird life is at present on foot in New Zealand. Discussing the proposal, Professor B. J. Marples, Professor of Zoology at the University of Otago, said that the study of birds through caging and ringing was extensively carried out in other countries and it was hoped that when tl: society was formed widespread observations of bird life in the Dominion would be carried out by ringing birds and then releasing them.

GOATS FOR GERMANY In addition to organising milk production from dairy cows, the German Government is encouraging an increase in the number of milking goats. During the war German goat herds increased to 4,600,000 head, but after the war goats were neglected. Last year’s effort brought the number to 2,400,000. German experts are now teaching the people that the annual yield of buttermilk from one goat covers the whole needs of one citizen and that each additional goat means an advance in the nation’s supply of edible fat. Every German working man who has the means of rearing it has been promised a first-class goat to enable him to improve his standard of living. RECIPE FOR GOOD FARMING M. L. Mosher, of the Inninois College of Agriculture, who has been in charge of the farm bureau farm management project from its beginning, gave the following as his recipe for good farmling: Good rotation and field management, suitable kind and amount of live stock, high crop yields, efficient live stock, careful use of labour, effective power and machinery, conservative buildings and fences, attention to prices of products. These had to be mixed with a love of farm work and farm life, constant study of farm business, timeliness and regularity, kindness, cleanliness, thoroughness, and the will to do a good job. THE HUMAN ELEMENT COUNTS The ways of some people are such that they may attract or repel farm animals. The quiet, kindly, sympathetic individual will, as a rule, take care of and feed successfully whatever animals are given to his charge. The rough, illtempered or unsympathetic individual, is as a rule, a poor hand to feed domestic animals. The feeder deals with a highly organised sensitive animal system, an animal system that is capable of being influenced by external factors. For instance, noise, rough treatment by dogs, and such like, are all known to have a bad influence on the nerves and digestive systems oi domestic animals.

TRADE IN PIG MEAT World pig meat production declined in 1937 owing mainly to a reduction in killings in the United States, but production in that country and in Europe should expand in 1938-39. Trade in pig meat is stll dominated by the United Kingdom’s imports of bacon and hams, which recovered slightly in 1937 after a he'.vy reduction in the four preceding years; the share of Empire countries in this trade has risen from 5 per cent in 1932 to 29 per cent in 1937, but Denmark still supplies nearly one-half of the total. On the other hand, about four-fifths of the United Kingdom’s imports of pork last year were of Empire origin. Pig meat production in Great Britain in 1937 fell below the record figure attained in 1936, but was well above the average for other recent years. The decline in the home output , was practically offset by the increase in imports, so that consumption was again almost unchanged at 421 b per head.