INTENSE FARMING.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 907, 29 August 1910, Page 8

INTENSE FARMING.

The; following extract. from l a letter to.;an Invercargill, friend,, from Mr. I. Raymond,',; a--'weli-kn6'wn 'jfbuthland' settler, will prove, .interesting to readers :— j'iLarge;."parties,;,of.,-A\;orking-: jmen are being sent to'Gerrn'ariy J ' with the view, of .ppening.;their,; v ey.es,;tq..the;.cpndition',of tho. working, classes -in "that 'country. I,: was.'.- offered, the-;,opportu nity. of join-;ing.,ono-,pf / these-, parties. for the. pur-r pose of -seeing';*how. these tours were conducted and. what fruits they produced." :>J could .not resist the offer, iind ; joined-' a-ttouring party last month, ■as/the.guest/of ?ilr. iivogel,, the person - who conceived ithe idea of these, party trips. On* this occasion there were forty-eight in* the'party—the majority Freetraders drawn 'from*;;the various labour organisatidns.:.,in and*; about London.;'/ AVc,.iisiteu;;Antveerp;. Brussels, Cologne, Essen, Berlin, Dresden, Lepwick, and -Dussel■dorf, travelling "fully 1S(K) miles, and I'am safe in saying 1 did not seo 1000 acres, of indilferently-tilled land in that area. The splendid uniformity of the crops gave one the impression that each,/seed had been-planted with'a .Jhe ground was as excei-leiitl-f 'workecTTas-a. well-Wpt kitchen garden. In"*fhis-*resjfec.feth6. Germans are.'a'quarter,.of.- , a,.c.eiitury/ahead of ,us,. and; the most"'"'6f' ,,, <rar*'*'party /returned converted to Protection. Mr. Yogel' treated me very-well,:- He speaks!six languages, rari'd'"was Vthiis; able .to.'. en-; gage ;;i*3,.oonyertatipn ' wifh/. the various j . I- saw, ••just'''enough i«f "(JGermariyir to : whet my 'appetite;,fo*J.mOrS u 'Sidlook. forward to' ahirther run in;that fionntiy. ..- ~: '.'The luckiest invention in history," said,/ .a/patent /official; to-a reporter of ■the.-New-York "was that of/barlied'-Srire,'' ,; Tt'came about by accident:" Isilac l! L'.- EllWOo'd was the inventor of; barbed wire.' In his youth lie lived in Do Kalb,-Illinois, and, having a neighbour "whose pigs trespassed' on- his he,p)it,,up one_ day a wire fcnoo.pf his v pwn make. This fence had barbs and points oh it; it was queer and ugly, but <it'. kept out-the pigs. It was. a real?,barbed-wire, fence,' tho first in the world,, apd.there was millions of money in it,',but : ydung'Ell-" wood and his . friends' laughed .at its freak appearance.. One, day, two .strangers saw this fence, perceived, how well it kept out tho pigs, realised'how cheap it was, .realised'in'>a'word its value, and ordered several tons of it from Ellwood. Furthermore,* they contracted to sell for "a'term/of years all tho barbed riro he could produce. Ellwood borrowed IOOOdoIs. and .set' up,,.a little factory. A fow years later oii ho.'had paid'. back that loan, and was worth a small matter of 15,000,000d015. besides."