YOUNG FARMERS' CLUBS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 3, Issue 204, 26 August 1940, Page 7

YOUNG FARMERS' CLUBS

MEMBERS ABROAD ACTIVITIES IN EGYPT In a letter addressed to the members of tlie Waimana Young Farmers' Club, Trooper E. A. Backhouse, of the 2nd Divisional Cavalry Regiment, First Echelon, says that there are many club members with the Second New Zealand! Expeditionary Force in Egypt and describes a visit made by them to the Cairo Industrial Research Farm. "There are about fifty Y.F.C. mem bers in our regiment," he writes, "and recently we made a visit to the research farm at Cairo. AYith an area of seventy acre.s, the farm has a permanent staff and the use of cheap native labour. "No grass is grown but they have a crop similar to lucerne and cut it four times a year. This is the main fodder for animals. "They do very little in the way of manuring, being mainly nitrate they use. as the land is all river silt. The wheat plots were very good and averaged out at about 136 bushels to the acre. Breeding for Production. "They grow a lot of olive and mango trees and it is also a great place for citrus fruit. We tasted some of the olives but they are not so hot. Tn the vegetable line, they iiave acres and acres of broad beans, although they believe in variety. Sugar cane is in the experimental stag:' as also is tobacco. "The cattle are very intriguing in breed. They arc either tied up under shelters or in pens and they never see a blade of grass, their feed being the green fodder previously mentioned. Although it may sound funny, they are mating these Egyptian cattle with, the Indian water buffalo and trying to increase production that way! I hardly thinil the buffalo, which arc very heavy'honed, would increase the butter fat. The Egyptian cattle arc like Shorthorns—and just average." Trooper Backhouse concludes with the information that the land on which is situated the research farm is valued at £100 an acre, with a rental of £8 to £10 per acre.