A COLORADO FARMER.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1383, 8 March 1912, Page 8

A COLORADO FARMER.

.NEW ZEALAND LAND PRICES TOO HIGH, ' . NOTHING HEKE TO TEMPT AMERI- : CAN MONEY, "From a farmer's point of view, you Lavo. nothing at present To bring American money over hero. Your labour question'is too unsettled, and your land is too bigh priced to compete with American cheap land." The speaker was Mr. Joseph Kerr, who, when ho is at home, raises cattlo and horses iu tho Stato of Colorado. He camo to New Zealand with credentials from tho Department of Agriculture at Washington, and before leaving 'for homo he had sought out a newspaper office to tell someone iu it how grateful he was lor tho kindness and hospitality shown to him on every hand in this country. Imbued with tho spirit of adventure, and attracted by stories of llio wild cowboy life iu the West which 'lie had heard of, Mr. Kerr went to Colorado twenty-five years ago, but he still 6peaks much more like a man from the north of the Tweed than like tho American'salesman who occasionally descends upon New Zealand. "Oil, yes, I've seen a little of your country. I've been here five weeks, and I've travelled practically all over tho North. Island, and I had a look at tho South Island, but a sniff of the cold there drove me back to Auckland to get warm. Of course its cold in Colorado, but it is always dry in cold weather there. I have never felt a,fiy discomfort there as I did licre. v, ■ v Cheap Money and Recklessness. "I've been watching your country. I ■know that your Government has been cutting up large estates to make land available for the small holder. That seemed to me a good thing. I don't know how Ihe Government could have set to work differently, but look at tho result. In ten years they have so increased the prico of land that they are powerless to buy any more at a payable rate. Tho cheap money scheme, too, seems to havo made men reckless iu the prices they will pay. The interest is low, and therefore they pay high prices, and not only that, but are willing to pay these high rates because back of their" heads they have the idea that the Government would not readily cuforce payment in a case of hardship. So it goes on. Yon are absolutely dependent on the London market, and if anything happens to disturb it you are in a bad way. Your prices are far too high." Somethina about American Farminn. Mr. Kerr went on to talk of farming in [America. Sheep did not interest him here, except that he thought the New Zealand pheep about the finest ho had ever seen. "We don't go in for sheep as you do there," he said, "and it's hard to make a New Zealaudcr understand the difference between the two countries. A man who wants to raise sheep there sends a border out with a provisioned wagon into the open prairie, with, say, 3000 sheep. At the end of a month a teamster comes out with more nrovisions and moves him ami the sheen along to the next waterhole. All that gracing is absolutely free. Of course it is being curtailed very rapidly now by the coining of new settlers, but there aro still' miles of unoccupied land. Some of the new men go on to the prairie and make a success of it, and some make failures. It is the richest land in the worldit will grow anything—but there is not enough rain. In tho winter, of course, it is covered with snow, mid, tho sheep must be taken in to the home ranch." So far Mr. Kerr would willingly commit himself, but he likes Colorado a great deal better than "this God's own--coun-try." .