FARMERS' UNION.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1506, 31 July 1912, Page 8

FARMERS' UNION.

| DOMINION CONFERENCE. GENERAL PROSPERITY ON THE LAND. OUR DECREASING EXPORTS. The eleyonth annual Dominion Conference of Hie New Zealand-• Farmers' Union was formally opened ycitcrday uiorniiijr, but through the. absence of the president, Mr., d. G. Wilson, owing to indisposition, and the fact that the southern delegates wore not present owing to the delay of tho LyU.elton steamer, an adjournment was made until this morning, after some necessary business had been, (lone. A letter.was received from Mr. Wilson stating that through a .temporary indisposition' ho had been forbidden, to travel , by his doctor, but he hoped to be present on Wednesday- or Thursday. Mr. Wilson added that the trouble was not of a serious nature, and that this was the first conference at which he had not been piesent. The Delegates, '.Mr. Eweu Campbell (Wanganui) was elected 'acting-chairman and the following delegates wore present:— Major Lusk, Te Kuiti; Captain Colbeck,. Auckland; Messrs. W.'B. Mntheson,' Ekctahutia; 11. J. Richards, Levin; W. 'J'. Birch, Marton; J. G. Lane, Napier; .I.'Tmraicliffe; Nelson; A. Mackay, Blcivheim; A. W. Nisbet, Pcloms Sound; E. Maxwell, Opunake; S. Chambers, Havelock North; Jf.. A, Ncvins and Thos. 'Mo*?. Wclliiiston; Geo. Dcdson, Nelson; and H. D. Vavasour, Blenheim. The conference resolved to solid a telegram to Mr. Wilson expressing sympathy with him in his indisposition, and great regret at his enforced temporary absence. . The President's Address, lii view of,the fact that copies of the presidential address which was to have been.delivered■ by Mr. Wilson, had been circulated among delegate's, it was resolved to- take Uiß address its read. Tho address said that there was much to congratulate farmers, and New Zealand, on during the past twelve months. Ail classes of .those who make a livinf upon the land had-prospered—prices had been good, though the output hod not oeen equal to the previous year. . Dairying-Great' Prices. ' i P a i l 7i I n ?' i a . itl , the ' address, had been ooneiiled by high prices beyond the wildest ureams of, a few years ago. That butter factories should be able to pav out Is., and cheese factories Is. 2d. for butteriat was little, short of the miraculous. A tew. years ago,-, cows were giving small .yields.'on .indifferent pastures, and th» made article (butter) . selling for ih\. at the stores, would net bring in more than ,-i.J per ncao. per annum, at the outside, including everything—whereas, now there were cows which returned as much as -v~i per annum,- and last year's average iras'probUbly .CS'or £9, for milk alone. <:rrcat.-.Ktride.s:.had been made in (his in-dustry;-(he had improved the .conditions under which farmers work, and, if kept clean, the mill; was-as sweet as that of hand-milked cows, iwpenencc alone would tell whether the luglily-sti-ung nervous cow could be milked as well by machines. Gradually, too, tile milking yards were being improved, ?nu milking sh*ds were being erected, enough, perhaps, not on the most approved principle. •' . ;' -. ; -'-. ■ :■■ "Fishiness" in --Butler. - ■ TJw investigation as fo'.'tiie "cause of •■ nshincss',' conducted by Dr. Eeakes and Mr. Ciiddie, seemed to have found the cause in a. very, simple fault, over-acidity .pi .cream. ■, Although the experts do not •claim definitely that this. is the cause, until further investigation, there is not •a'tloubt that in .the case of their experiments, over-acidity was tho' cause. Tho .pasteurising of cream has been' found to wra distinct'benefit, though, at first, it sometimes had a "cooked" flavour. It is now so much beyond doubt that a better muter can be made by healing the cream mid.then cooling it, that after this year ..there.'will be very few dairy factories .[hat have, not-installed a pasteuriser fortius, purpose. Dr. Eeakes; s figures make ..it.unquestionable that the pasteurising of SAim-milk and whey is also a necessity ■ so as. to stamp out tuberculosis in calves and pigs. A. great many factories are installing- plants to do this, but in some cases.the boilers will, not give the steam required for the working' of the factory ami the pasteuriser as well, so that on/ Hie score of expense soino factories are not adding this important machine, which must soon.be:omo imperative. Developments.in Cheese. ; The development in cheese factories, encouraged by the high prices, has been considerable. Not only in numbers and output,.. Out also in advanced treatment. Ukherto, the whey which has been returned to the suppliers has contained an appreciable amount of butter-fat, which can be replaced by other and . cheaper (onus of fat, if necessary in feeding whey to pigs or culves. Some of tho factories have, therefore, adopted a system of skimming the starter and tho whev for buttertat; and it is said that, this has been wonderfully successful,' so much so, that they luive been able to pay out the highest price ever known in the history oi the industry, viz., Is. 3d. to the suppliers. Ih'e .by-products are, of course, less valu'Oblo, and some other form of calf and nig. food must be supplied. This, no doubt, means tho rearing of fewer calve-, and dairy cows must in the futtiro become more valuable, if more systematic rearin" of calves is not adopted. ° • .Problems of Agriculture. Although on the whole the agricultural tanner had done well,, it was doubtful whether wheat paid the farmer for all his trouble, risk, anxiety, and doubt. It is an exhausting crep, suitably 'only for a limited area of our lands, .and in proximity to a railway in a good climate. Practically all, or nearly all, our wheat lands are in Canterbury. Wheat is grown elsewhere for local purposes,- but not often m such quantities as to bu sulucient even for this, and a. great deal of Canterbury wheat found its way to the North Island, as well n.s oats anil potatoes. Canterbury has such a variety ot foil and such a good climate, that farmers can compote successfully in other districts, sometimes even with the locallygrown article. For instance, on tho .Host Coast of the North Island, where oats can be successfully grown (though in certain seasons rust 'is' prevalent and tho harvest time not always propitious) farmers sometimes cut nil their oat crop into chaff and sell it, and buy southern oats for feed. Blights ,%re bad enough in Canterbury, but in the North Island they arc worse. Wheat, however, seems to lis less liable l.c attack than other grains in New Zralund. The worst MiVlit that wheat growers in Canterbury complain about is the want of.suitable'labour at harvest time, and this is certain to limit,_ in coming- years, the area devoted to this cereal. -Generally speaking, however, the agricultural farmer hold his own and did well.

Lamb Fattening, . For lamb fattening, flic scnron, on tli« whole, has not boon a bad one, except that there was not t.lip quantity of lambs to fatten, anil Xew Zealand is short by some MO,OOO in exports of this class of frozen produce. Good lambings generally follow groru autuia'is, so we may expect a better lambing this year, if ivo lmvo favourable tvoiilhor. AVe have increased our inutlon i'xpirt by about 4011,000 carcasses, so the two equalise cach other, but the bulk of these must be ewe mutton. One pleasing feature is that the -price has kept up under decidedly adverse circumstances, such as the strikes. It is fortunate that prices have not receded, and that freezing companies anil oilier purchasers 'will do well. Whtra they have a dead horse to work off, it has a depressing effect uiion prices in the Dominion for the ■ ecming season. Wool and Mutton Prospects. Tlio iv'ool-growci'.lias fair prospects. At one time the outlook wm not jtt all pro-

mising. The strike? threatened (o affect trade to the degree that pi'icos won Id rapidly fall. The woollen trade dees not sesin l:o liftvo licjii materially affected, and prices seem nhont the same as last year.. CVcssbreds stem to find as much favour as' ever with the American.-', who are reported to lie buying again freely of this class' of wool. This class of w(so!| is unfortunately very scarce in No\V Zenlaud. It is said to have qualities of elasticity and character unequalled in the world, especially the half-bred, but the merino is a diminishing quantity, and it looks as if in a fen" years we shall scarcely have any merinos left, and ouly a few "of the in-bred halfbrcd and Corj ricdale in their place. Our trade has changed, and our flocks must follow cur trade. Wool, although it still represents more than oiio-third of our total exports, in the large majority cf our tlocl:?, is of secondary importance. Our total sheep in the I.'ominion have increased, and the number of flocks also, showing that they are getting more and more into the hands' of farmers who keep a flock of sheop not so much for their wool as for their lambs. The . latest . sheep returns givo the number of ew«s on April, 1911, as 12,094,754 (since the lamb trade became general, we have increased them by four million), tho total lambs at that dale are given as 6,555,125 (to this must be added the number exported, which was about 3,500,000), and wo havo 10,055,125 lambs as the increase for tho year; this would (jive us about 83 per cent, of lambs, which is probably about what we get. Probably (for there is no data to. go'upon) half of the lambs exported would' be the black-faced breeds, and in that case both ewes and wethers would be .exported, leaving about 16.000,000 white-faced lambs cxportecK Of these probably not more thau onc-thiril would bo ewes. The exports would be, therefore:— Wether lambs, about 2,011,(166 Ewe lambs,, about 1.455.333 < : Total 3,-199,909

Of the. 6,555,125 lambs left in the Dominion on April 30, presumably 3,555,125 would be e\vo lambs, and 3,000,000 wether lambs. This means that to supply deaths and ewes cast for .age wo have just sufficient to take their place, and unless wo keep the .best of the aged cwos on (not a satisfactory thing to do) for another year, we have como to the height of our cwo flock, and an indifferent lambing may decrease it. Tlie high-water mark was, in reality, reached in 1910, when wo had nearly 200,000 ewes mors than in 1911,' yet according to tho returns we had nearly 100,000 more lambs in 1910 than in 1911, and we should therefore have been able to - increase our owe flocks by 200,000 tho nest year; instead of thi-i our number of owes fell in 1911 by 200,000. Decreasing Exports, Referring to the export trade, Mr. Wilson said: When wo turn to our exports, wc find to our consternation that thev arc decreasing, and-this scorns attributable to a less quantity of produce rather than to a fall in price. In 1910 wo put our house ill order by increasing our output and decreasing-our imports, and the large margin of =65,000,000 left us with plenty of monOT for expansion of trade, it Labour would encourage it. Tho Tear' follow-in", however, our exports fell by three millions, and our imports rose three millions, so we had a small margin. Up.to the end ?ii a 1 this year our exports had again fallen considerably, -but this was somewhat accounted for by the lateness of the season. On June 30 tho quarter showed such an increase over the same quarter ol the previous year that at that date we had nearly equalled the total exports I"' evI0 »s year. There was a distinct feeling three months ago that credit would be curtailed, but this seems, for the present, to have passed. Tho returns coming iu for .wool have be-eu somewhat better than was anticipated, i,nd the increase in exports Iv'a.s" renewed confidence. ft , n P' s ol ' tho merchants through with their engagements, but tho caOls is such an adjunct to our trade that finances are. more easily adjusted now. ifce note 'of warning uttered by the chairman of tho Bank of If en- Zealand at the annual meeting last j-ear was not without reason What does all this point to? Its significance is that it is not Governments nor members of Houses of Parliament which can pull a country out and fi pasto';ll,^ n£eJlCy ' bUt the fa ™ CTS

Past Financial Stringency, . Sometimes stringency comes from entirely outside causes, such as wo have ■seen in the City of C4la?gow Bank failure or the-crisis in Wall Street a few years ago. It should be noted, too, that 011 each occasion when the'exports of our Dominion. saved the situation, we, were borrowing largely in London and presumably remitting 'the money to New Zealand. 1 do not wish it to bo understood there was any : financial crisis here, for there was not, but that there was financial stringency- everyone knows. Indeed, in the moro acute occasion in 1900, tho Government retrenched to the extent, it was claimed, of .£250,000. ' Can, then, tho tamers, by their enterprise, foresight and toil, again by increasing the output, a," I '* »P to the .high-water mark? I think tlicy can and will. One thing is essential for this, and that is en-couragement-not the kind of encouragement which consists in adding fresh bur(lens for them to bear upon their shoulders, nor that kind which demands taxation of what tho townspeople are pleased to call "unearned increment," but ot which I' venture the opinion that it is the farmers' very hard-earned "increment/ not that which, seeks to set one set of farmers against another, but rather that which will give every farmer security ot tenure mid security for Ins Some politicians nro t"i ? . sayln S 11,6 unimproved value ot land has increased in twenty vcars from X 10,000,000 to X 15.1,000.000, a'mfstatuig that this is "nnnarnnd" increment. During that timo probably 10 millions of acres of new settlement has taken plane, and in all. probability from 30 to .10 milion pounds worth of unimproved value has been created by flic settlers, besides the new townships'w ; hich have sprung up 111 that time, and another enormous sum which tile bhite adds to the unimproved value at each successive valuation, but which is really value created Ijv tho settler himself. Under the best conditions of mutual goodwill, I sec no rcusou win* the farmers should not double our cxFn, r , ts \ I think, in IIOJ, to the Farmers' Union Conference. The exports. I think, were then .£12.881.121. In 1010 they reached .£22,180,2(19. I say again to-day, Xew Zealand ma.v, iti the not-far-distant future, again double her output. Exports Can Expand Greatly. . New Zealand is capable of great expansion in her exports, but it will need uuiled efiorl-. Further lands must: be brought into cultivation. Tlio laud at present in use must bo made to put out moro and more produce by intelligent farming, aided by experiment and assisted by science. We must have good labour, for which wo can all'ord to pay gocd wages. The dairvman must lie taught to improve his herd by testing, to pasteurise his skim mill:, to feed his calves bettor, and prepare winter and .-limmer food for his cows lo breed I'lio best stock suitable to their' climate. Tho agricultural farmers, by assisting them to experiment as to crops and manures best suited for their soil, climate, and situation, and the ii>« of the best stock; a system of mixed farming, where suitable, a combination of dairying, lamb fattening, fodder and grain crops. I cannot help thinking that in the future we shall only grow grain for our own use, and increase in other directions our output. I have a great belief in (lie future of our lamb trade—saving a few of the best English lambs, wo are 011 top in the lamb trade. We have few rivals, though perhaps they aro powerful ones, but none have the benefit of oiir equable climate. Going hand in hand with a similar expansion in dairying, we can easily double our output of butler and chesse, and the three million lambs now exported, within the near future should become five million*. All participate in the prosperity which must be the outcome of such expansion. We cannot expect the agitator lo look 011 without protest, but we can pass him by and appeal to the intelligent workman to assist us in accomplishing "this consummation devoutly lo be wished for." He alone can coll a truce: Tho politician who «eks to help and represent tho working man can do mucii j if. bo would oeaw to try cuid fscurs .vot«J

by raising ill) animosity. Knglair.l, in the fu'ly year.-:' peace after Waterloo, made ('minimus stnde>, nml if we I'onJd only have imiu-ilrial peace, wluit strides wo nmld make.

Stronger than Ever and Hopeful. In conclusion, Mr. Wilson's address said tho union .stood in n stronger position today than it ever did before, and this in spite .of many discouragements in somo places. Tho farmer was a. difficult man to get to meetings, but there were signs now l lint he was thinking. Jlc was very hopeful of the future, as younger men with new enthusiasm were everywhere taking up the work, and he was sure they would find new paths which (heolder men had not dreamt; .of. • In all the developments ami changes of which he had spoken the union had never wavered from presenting tho advantages of the freehold to the individual and to tho nation, junto expose the dangers of Socialism and other nostrums, winch they believed would endanger the body politic. I'liev considered they had done the farmers Kime good by -securing for them educational advantages, which lightened their load, and helped to make farming more profitable. They may have foiled to do many things, but they had done their best, ami hoped that their efforts had been in tho interests of the whole community, and that tho union would at all times deal fairly with all sections of the people, and do the best to liv> at peaco with their fellows, and help towards the general goodwill, wnieh alone, could make our islands prosperous. (Applause.)