The Akaroa Mail. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 2. THE FARMERS' CLUB.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume VI, Issue 562, 2 December 1881, Page 2

The Akaroa Mail. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 2. THE FARMERS' CLUB.

This club has a vast sphere of usefulness. In no place in the colony do farmers lead more isolated lives than on Bank's Peninsula, for in no place are means of access to the different farms so difficu't. Cnc is astonished in travell'ng over it to find in little isolated valleys among the hills, many a prosperous homestead whose inhabitants have difficult work indeed to carry their produce to the nearest market, and who spend many a week and mouh without mixing with 'their fellow settlers. To such p-rsons a Farmers' Club is an invaluab'e institution. There is no standing still now-a-'iLiys. science is perpetually solving fresh problems in economics and h who would succeed -must keep, up with the times T i ilo'this there mu-t be an interchange of ideas and experience, and'every man can do good by being an observer and imparting the fruit of his observation to -others.

Cur Farmer's Club hold a meeting to-morrow, and we hope to see it numerously attended We know there are great, difficulties in the way, I ut an effort .should be made to surmount them. It is .true the roads are long and difficult in -<uir l illy country, and at the present tin-cwhen the dairying is in full swing it .is difficult to get away, hut "where there's a will there's a way," mid we are sure that if our friends look around they will-find that the men who have prospered most in th • colony are those who have, sought to meet others and benefit hy their experience. No truer words were ever spoken than '• It is not good for man to be alone.." The ideas •of the ablest men get cramped by isolation, and to hope to gain any great shrewdness or advantage a m. n mu-w mix with his fellow men. Books are of great use, but they will not be of much service without intercourse, for conversation is to a book what a lexicon is to a language,-tin interpreter of tho mean,'ing of tbe words written.

It is almost superfluous here, to point out the benefits of united action through an institution of the kind we are referring to. Farmers-of the Peninsula are already aw ire of the great benefit that has accrued to them through the action of the Clnb in'importing from England certain articles in use in dairies. With this fact, st iring them in the face, they should be prepared to make further efforts, and we have no doubt the great majority are inclined to do so There are of course always n, few who hold aloof from any good work of this kind, seeking to benefit by the \iork of others., but 'they are quite sti liciently punished hy the contempt in which tney are held., and the consciousness of their own inferiority. That threadbare story of the old man and the sticks, whose truth is proved by dts continual application, can never be •put with greater force than in the case of farmers on thu Peninsula—united 'th 7 are strong—for their united knowledge tcaii always produce really good cheese jit for any market in the world, and can .provide means of export. L ivided, they are weak, for if each n.au makes in his own style, and tho bad is offered' with the good, buyers hesitate, and the price of the whole is lowered. Tne meeting is edled to-morrow principally to hi-ar of the shipment by the. Oruri, and we aiv of opinion that the failure of th it particular shipment wis due in no small measure to tho great difference in the -quality of the cheese ijuipped. No doubt in the hurry of ga h'fing a, considerable quantity of .-•bee c together, a good deal ■ f inferior quality was collect d, and this helped to .:,.n! tint other during th.' voyage hour,'.

ft is true that the arrangements for keeping the chamber cool utterly failed, but then, a good deal of the cheese sent home in other vessels amongst other ar. ides of export must have been subjected to an equally high temperature, and yet was not spoiled. No doubt in the Orari shipment the good suffered lor the bad, the noxious gases f«om the one spoiling the other

The only way in which we can see that cheese of a uniform quality can be turned out is by means ot establishing cheese factories, and CTta-nly farmers at their meetings should 1 se no oppo trinity of discns.Jng the p -ssihility of estab'ishin r these on the IVninsuhi. Mr l>t»vro:i who, us we ail know is a warni advocate, of thee establishments, is, we understand, expected to he present at -the meeting to-morrow, and will shortly proceed to England on business connected with the establishment of the proposed cheese factory in Ashburfon. We heatthat Mr Bowrm proposes to take homo three tons of Peninsula cheese as a sample, and we hope that it will reach England in good condition and be duly appreciated. We remarked in another article that we believed that one reason why our cheese reached England in such bad order was that it got so much knocked about in transhipment, and we still hold to that idv'a. We are certain that it farmers could only hold together, that they could get a ship to come to Akaioa to load produce.

We do not say that we could fill a large ship, though we do not know,-if all the woo! were kept for her, in addition to the cheese and other produce, that ne might not almost do that, but at any rate, by united action farmers might get such a quantity of exports ready at a certain date as would induce a vessel to partly load here. This is frequently done in other parts of tho Colony, and we do not see why it should not he done in Akaroa also.

However, the subject of the various benefits that might be conferred on our fertile county by united action in these m tters, are so numerous that we might go on writing till the patience of our readors was tired, and all that we wish to say is really comprised in the wish that farmers will meet together periodically to talk over matters affecting their re.tl interests. That point once gained, all the rest is easy, for from one and another will continually crop up subjects of discussion, the full consideration and ventilation of which will tend to the advancement of the people of the

Peninsula