THE WAIKATO FARMER

Waikato Times, Volume 114, Issue 19125, 9 December 1933, Page 19 (Supplement)

THE WAIKATO FARMER

EDITED BY C. E. CUMI

Poultry-Keeping. Xo industry presents such scope for improvement and deserves more encouragement and support than that of poultry-keeping. The bulk of the eggs of the Dominion is produced on the farms, and yet the farm-produced egg is seldom sold at a profit. There are men who conduct the business on a large scale who make more money out of eggs than the great majority of dairy farmers make out of.the sale of butter-fat. The money is there if the business is properly conducted, and the sale of farm-produced eggs efficiently organised. England is giving us a much needed lead. Country-wide instruction and the Government s national mark egg have made poultrykeeping in England the most successful rural occupation. What a sideline to dairying it oould be to this country If our country women had the necessary knowledge and had we ?ome organisation to proteot producers against the speculative middleman of the cities. And what a good living it could be for oountry girls instead of the poorly paid work In the cities that attraots so many of them away from the land. « • * • Interest Created at Last. It is very satisfactory to know that the Women’s Division of the Farmers’ Union is interesting itself in, the matter. It is a movement that has long awaited the guiding hand of such an organisation. Ho doubt the majority of the Division members have been keeping poultry for many years and seldom or never making any real profit out of them only because they have laoked the necessary knowledge of how to keep them properly and then have been at the mercy of the eggdealers.

It is also gratifying to know that the demand by country women for 'the bulletin of the Department of Agriculture, “Utility Poultry-keeping,” is rapidly Increasing. It is well when there are only four 'Government poultry instructors for the whole Dominion that the 'Government should have a publication which in the hands of anybody of intelligence is a splendid guide book. Indeed the countrywoman who is ready to be directed Implicitly by 'this guide, and allow* no other advdoe to Influence her, can have every confidence In eottlng up poultry keeping. The ease oom'os to mind of a crippled girl who sent her shilling to the Department of Agriculture for a oopy of its poultry bulletin, and then followed it to the letter. In a very short time she had the best and most payable poultry plant in the whole of her province. And she was not acquainted with anybody who kept poultry. That was perhaps to her great advantage, as she had nobody with whom to discuss her daily problems and divert her attention from her infallible printed guide. What this girl did any other enthusiastic girl can do. We say “enthusiast" because it is no use anybody taking up poultry keeping seriously unless they have a love of animals and are prepared to make a hobby of it. Attention to the many little details Is imperative, and if there is one key-note to success in poultry keeping it Is cleanliness. Essentially is it a business for the country girl, for whom it should provide a line and satisfactory livelihood. * * • • Organisation Imperative. Writing in the Journal of Agriculture on the need for organisation of the poultry Industry the Chief Poultry Instructor, Mr. F. C. Brown, says:— “At the present time the local consumer Is generally catered for In anything but a proper manner. Usually the market rates for eggs are based on the doubtful artlole rather than on eggs of speoial quality, and consequently the consumption of eggs is retarded. If all eggs were graded for size and cleanliness, tested for quality, and sold according to weight, a greater demand would be created on the local market and increased prices would result. It Is useless, however, discussing further these and other dosdrablo and necessary reforms for the welfare of the industry until poultry keopers, both large and small, realise the urgent necessity of bettor organisation."

European v. New Zealand Farms. The New Zealand farmer in reading of the size of the farms In European dairying countries is apt to get quite a wrong idea. He naturally supposes that the 10 to i5-aore farm in such a country as Denmark is a little peasant holding. He is apt to forget that the Danish cow, quite unlike the New Zealand cow, does not depend on grass alone. The long winters necessitate the growing of fodder crops and the purchase of much Imported concentrated food. A Danish farmer with 15 acres may have a herd of 40 to 50 ■cows, whereas under Nuw Zealand conditions such a holding may only ca'Ty seven to 10 cows. What grazing land tho Danish farmer has he makes the best use of and the New Zealand farmer does not, even though it is of far greater importance to him.

A page devoted to assisting the Waikato farmer to make the fullest possible use of the great natural advantages of the Waikato and to thereby develop the most prosperous farming community in the world*.