A COLORADO FARMER.

Waipa Post, Volume II, Issue 96, 22 March 1912, Page 4

A COLORADO FARMER.

NEW ZEALAND LAND PRICES TOO HIGH. NOTHING HERE TO TEMPT AMERICAN MONEY.

The Dominion gives the following result of an interview with an American farmer : —■

" From a farmer's point of view you have nothing at present to bring American money over here. Your labour question is too unsettled, and yourland is too highpriced to compete with American cheap land." The speaker was Mr Joseph Kerr, who, when he is at home, raises cattle and horses in the State of Colorado. He came to New Zealand with credentials from the Department of Agriculture at Washington, and before leaving for home he had sought out a newspaper office to tell someone in it how grateful he was for the kindness and hospitality shown to him on every hand in this country. Imbued with the spirit of adventure, and attracted by stories of the wild cowboy life in the West which he had heard of, Mr Kerr went to Colorado twenty-five years ago, but he still speaks much more like a man from the north of the Tweed than like the American salesman who occasionally descends upon New Zealand. "Oh, yes, I've seen a little of your country. I've been here five weeks, and I've travelled practically all over the North Island, and I had a look at the South Island, but a sniff of the cold there drove me back to Auckland to get warm. Of course it's cold in Colorado, but it is always dry in cold weather there. I have never felt any discomfort there as I did here. CHEAP MONEY AND RECKLESSNESS.

" I've been watching your country. I know that your'Government has been up flarge estates to make land' available for the small holder. That seemed to me a good thing. I don't know how the Government could have set to work differently, but look at the result. In ten years they have so increased the price of land that they are powerless to buy any more at a payable rate. The cheap money scheme, too, seems to have made merfcreckless in the prices they will pay. The interest is low, ;and'. therefore they pay high prices, and not only that, but are willing to pay these high rates because back of their heads they have the idea that the Government would not readily enforce payment in a case of hardship. So.it goes on. You arc absolutely dependent on the London market, and if anything happens to disturb it you are in a bad way. Your prices are far too high."

SOMETHING ABOUT AMERICAN FARMING.

Mr Kerr went on to talk of farming i-n America. Sheep did not interest him here, except that he thought the New Zealand sheep' about the finest he had ever seen. "We don't go in for sheep as you do here," he said, ""and it's hard to make a New Zealander understand the difference between the two countries. A man who wants to raise sheep there sends a herder out with a provisioned wagon into the open prairie with, say, 3000 sheep. At the end of a month a

teamster comes out with 'more provisions, and moves him and the sheep along to the next watcrhole. All that grazing is absolutely free. Of course it is being curtailed very rapidly now by the coming of new settlers, but there are still miles of unoccupied land. Some of the new men go on to the prairie and make a success of it, and some make failures. It is the richest land in the world —it will grow anything —but there is not enough rain. In the winter, of course, it is covered with snow, and the sheep must be taken in to the home ranch." So far Mr Kerr would willingly commit himself, but he likes Colorado a great deal better than " this God's own country."