AGRICULTURAL TOPICS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 10, Issue 46, 6 November 1946, Page 7

AGRICULTURAL TOPICS

AGRICULTURE & AEROPLANES

Modern aeroplanes are proving of increasing advantage to agriculture and trade. In addition to the use of ’planes for sowing and topdressing of difficult country and for the carriage between countries of bull semen for artificial insemination, several show teams of sheep have recently been sent by air between Australian State capitals for metropolitan shows, and they have arrived in first class condition. From New Zealand have gone, by air, eggs from special pedigree hens to Australia, and the most recent order for 100 eggs despatched by the poultry department of Massey Agricultural College arrived in such good condition as to produce 95 chicks. Most poultrymen consider that to hatch 80 chicks from 100 eggs is very satisfactory. The eggs were flown from Palmerston North to Auckland and transferred to the trans-Tasman air service for Sydney and thence taken by land fo Padstow, where they were incubated by Mr J. Karruish, a leading New South Wales poultryman. Actually, 108 eggs were sent and only six were infertile. Advance plans are well in hand at the College for the importation of several consignments of special hatching eggs by air from England. Reclamation in India' A plan has been laid before a national planning committee in India to establish agricultural co-opera-tives for the purpose of reclaiming vast areas of arid land and introducing modern agricultural machinery. It is intended that this be part of a national programme to overcome part of India’s food deficit of over 30,000,000 tons. Town and Country

Improvement of the social relationships between the people of town and country is dealt with in a short article in “Overseas” the journal of the Overseas League (London). Under the caption of “Getting Together in New Zealand,” the journal states: “One of the problems, although perhaps it would be truer to call it a natural condition of our present way of living, in view of the many tremendous problems with which the whole world is beset, is the question of how to get town and country folk to understand one another better.

“Townspeople are apt to look down on countryfolk; countryfolk are apt—entirely unnecessarily—to suffer from an inferiority complex, and the result is that there are divisions and lack of understanding where there ought to be unity and insight. In New Zealand, Massey Agricultural College sends speakers out to town schools, where the children listen to up-to-date talks on farming, as well as seeing films; and are made to understand that the life of a farmer is suitable for the brightest and most intelligent boys and not for the dunces; the girls equally being given to understand that their lives will be full and happy even if they are not within reach of a large store or a picture house. This is an admirable move in the right direction surely, and it would be interesting to learn if other agricultural college are doing something along the same lines elsewhere.”