SMALL FARM SCHEME.

Waipa Post, Volume 44, Issue 3183, 28 May 1932, Page 6

SMALL FARM SCHEME.

gj r> The scheme mooted by the Government for the placing of unemployed as tenants under the Small !Farm Settlement Act sounds very interesting and attractive, and I believe a number of families in town are eagerly awaiting an opening. But, as a farme-i, various difficulties suggest themselves to my miind and 1 am seeking for information through the medium •■ / of your columns. First, suppose a farmer is willing to out off a field of from 15 to 20 acres from his holding, who would pay the cost of re-survey in the event of h-s wishing to sell the rest of his farm and what security is offered the tenant in such; a case? Second, it is not likely that a farmer would place a new chum tenant on his best land. It is understood that the lands to be offered are more or less waste lands, by which we infer that at present they are non-productive—-probably covered with rushes, gorse, blackberry or ragwort. The tenant would have to work hard and with discretion for at least 12 months-before he could bring neglected lands into productivity. How is he to live in the meantime, Is it intended that he shall draw refief pay until such time as he can keep himself ? ■Mr Coates says that where necessary a Public Works hut will be erected. Who pays the cost of transporting the material to the site, and who provides a water tank and fencing material necessary to enclose the little home against grazing animals. It must not be expected that farmers have surplus timber, tanks or fencing wire to spare. If a farmer parts with 12 acres he is cutting himself short of a changing paddock, and will have to cut down the number of stock he is running. In addition to allowing strangers access to his land, he may be able to allow them the use of one cow, perhaps a little meat, and, in some cases, free firewood; but it would be impossible for him to do more. Many farmers are more destitute than the relief workers, and I can quite well imagine cases where the holder of five or six hundred acres would be very well content to shut himself up in his worst corner With time to work at it so long as he was maintained at the rate of £2 a week from trelief funds. It would be a haven, indeed, to many a one just now. Two pounds weekly, with no responsibility, no heartbreak from watching your property go to pieces Jov lack of funds. What a rest. Mr Coates imagines a tenant farmer eager to give his servces on the farm,'in return for cash, but who is to judge just how much such services are worth? The point that Mr Coates and all committees working on this scheme must get into their heads is that the farmer has no cash. The tenant would expect the farmer to buy his surplus eggs, potatoes and such, but the farmer himself has to depend upon these sidelines to pay his grocery bill. How can he nay for what he is producing himself? One more point. It takes an experienced man to deal with gorse, scrub or rushes. Is the farmer required to supervise the efforts of a well-meaning but ignorant tenant who by wrong handling of these pests lays up more trouble for future years. I am, etc., A PLAIN FARMER.