COUNTRY NOTES.

Wanganui Herald, Issue 12856, 18 May 1912, Page 6

COUNTRY NOTES.

(By our Westmere Correspondent.) A 'rather serious accident took place in tho Kai Iwi district a few days ago, through a riding horse playing up with a young lady, a Miss Alexander, a granddaughter of Mr David Peat’s. My informant says that Miss Alexander was totally unconscious for several days, but has now regained a condition of semi-conscionsno-s. Being in hospital, and having every attention, medically and otherwise, I tain but express the earnest hope that the bright young life will bo speedily (restored to its normal condition of health and happiness. I believe that, on the whole, what grain crops there are along the coast are threshing out better than anticipated. Tho ordinary creameries are just about closing down. For nice dairy herds as much as £lO per head all round has been offered and refused. I ■suppose there are fancies in cows, as in creatures of a more delicate nature. What I mean is this—when a person wants to sell out his herd at £7 apiece, prospective buyers will try to be? j the vendor down to £6 or £(j l()s. Young dairy stock are in great demand, and the breeding and raising of heifers of a good milking strain is both a present and a prospective lucrative enterprise. Twenty-month to two-year heifers, coming to profit, with a Taranaki certificate or a reputable dash of dairy blood in them will easily fetch £3 and £4 more than they did a few years ago. As to prospective dairying, I quote ibe observing and matured opinions of a gentleman connected with a large mercantile firm. “ Striding out,” said he, "the stiff clay area of mid-Rangitdkei, the whole of the seaboard from Mananatu right up to Taranaki will in a comparatively short period of time be all cut up .into dairy farms. The cow is going to supplant the sheep. The Iliad is all well watered and the climate and sod are ideal for producing milk. 1 hero are large portions of this area immensely richer than the richest of the Taranaki pastures. We are travelling at a fast rate, and there’s no need to force things by political pressure and Parliamentary statute. All my firm's interests are in tue land, but if you hurry up too rapidly with small settlement, you are going to displace population and possibly interfere with incipient or new-born manufactures and creative industries. We wish to see the Dominion become progessively selfreliant. A nation of merely raw producers is alter all a very helpless entity. Onr butter and cheese prices are entirely dependable on the wages of the Bidisii working man. So is our frozen meat, to some extent. A war, a slump i nmoney, or a strike would press heavily on onr farming products Where would we be :f the London market were shut oat to us? Wool is a world’s requirement, but in the nutter of wool New Zealand has yet to have it brought home to her that in the sale of raw wool she is enriching •immensely those that purchase from her. As long as England was an exporter of wool she was comparatively poor and unimportant, but when she became $ uuuuifactum- she stoppetf into tAV-fro&t ranlrof nations”

Over aiul over again tlio farmer complains about the middleman, and so 1 suppose docs the town consumer. Mv business friend, as quoted above, virtually tells us that the manufacturer is a middleman, and its for you of my town readers to con his words over thoughtfully in your minds, for it’s only in the centres of population that manufactuiing industries can, tako their rise and pursue their creative avocations. You towns are little else than mere brokers, the handlers and pivssers-un of raw material. You make all you can out of the farmer and the manufacturer at the other cud makes all he can out ot you. lender such conditions your present profits arc silvei n, but if you took to working up the raw material your gains would bo golden. One word more. As regards wages. Yly opinion is that the wages man is at the end of Ir.s tether, and unless a creative era of converting rawpi oducts into warehouse merchandise is inaugurated, we will simntv evolve into a compound of scratching and fighting Kilkenny cats. .No nation ever evolved out ol talk, twaddle and controversy and no people ever laid the foundations ot solid and lasting prosperity on political speculations and fcgjslativo statutes. Honest industry, superior workmanship and love of truth and art has alone and ever stood the test of human vicissitude. The potato crop is practically harvested. The yiehi has been aa m, . one of. say, seven to nine tons ner -acre .Some favoured ones have had more. Ino price per ton since digging time has gone no quite £1 per ton. Here again tae lamer has his growl at the middleman. Sri'. ! one to me a week or two ago—“ Ucfore I started lifting I nut out feelers as to prices. 1 was ■ potatoes were offering in great plenty and that they would he cheap, probably £3 or £3 os. ia ton. 1 closed with my best oiler for £3 10s. When the spuds got into the hands of the middleman up went the .once £1 per ton and i who had ail the risk and worry and the work am hard hit, and the middleman pockets his £IOO by a simple stroke of the pen. Hut I’m net the only one. Toddy McSimnle’s whipping the cat over his £3OO loss.’’ There are others in the potato h;ri-