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FARMING IN FRANCE

FRENCH MISSIONED VIEWS

MEAT AND PUREBRED STOCK

One of the members of the French Mission is M. Henri Corbiere, who at his estate at Nonant-le-Piu, Normandy, is a great breeder of thoroughbreds, and also of Percheron horses. M. Corbiere is also a highly-trained agricultural engineer, and during the war, like most of his countrymen, he has been a soldier, serving with the artillery for four years, partly in France and partly in the Balkans—in Serbia and Bulgaria:.

While in tho Soutli Island M. Cor-: biere, with Dr. C. J. Reakes, Director ! of Agriculture, paid a flying visit to J the Canterbury Agricultural College at > Lincoln, where he had a necessarily j short view of the home farm and of j some of tho stock. Coming back ho i called in at the Riccarton racecourse, ■ where Sir Georgo Clifford showed him | over tho course and appointments.. ; Speaking to a representative of the : "Weekly Press," 51. Corhiere expressed, a good deal of admiration for what he ? had. seeu at the Agricultural College. "It is a fine place," he said, "and I was glad to learn that the students—who were away at the time did all the.work on the place. This is the correct principle to work on. In France the Government (locs a very great deal to encourage agriculture. The State has established many agricultural colleges, and assists largely with the shows, giving prizes and premiums, and so on, but at most of the, colleges theory obtains more. attention than practice, and at few, if any, is there any large extent of ground on which tne students have to do all the work. I believe personally that they should do the practical work at a collego as well as merely learn the principles and theory of agriculture and animal husbandry." Owing to the rather hurried, passage of the mission, through tho North Island, M. Corhiere was riot able to make as detailed an inspection of the country as he could wish. What ho has seen he admires. "It is very different to Australia, here," he snid, "and New Zealand is much more like England and parts of France. Everything look so green hero, and there are plenty of trees." Tho mention of France brought up the question of the rehabilitation of the French farms in the war zone which have been .devastated by the fighting. M. Corbiere said that luckily the area covered really a comparatively narrow strip. In that area, of course, immense damage had been done. It war, extremely probable that the thousands of German prisoners in French handd would'be made to restore the country, end, of course, Germany 'would have to .foot the bill. Already huge gangs of prisoners were busily employed filling up all the trenches and shell holes; they had been employed at this work while hostilities were in progress, hut the French did nob employ the Hun prisoners .iear the fighting lines, as tho Germans did with the prisoners they captured. M Corbiere pointed out that though the German prisoners might be employed to tarry out this work, there was an enormous amount more to be done. Wells and water supplies had been polluted with dead horses, trees razed to the ground, buildings absolutely destroyed, stock taken, and plant destroyed. For all this Germany would have to pay, but it would fall to tho French to do tho actual work of replacement. It does not appear from 1 what M. Corbiere says that New.Zealand farmers can do very much directly to assist. The long: distance between New Zealand and France would preclifde any trade, or any cxtensivo trade, in ■purebred stock, and what was wanted would probably be procured from England. So far as meat was concerned, France would want meat for some years to come, until she had built up her own flocks and herds again. "We'were a great cattle country," said M. Corbiere, "and wo had 20 million cattle, half as many again as Australia. AVe exported cattle, chiefly to Germany, Switzerland> and Italy. Before the' war tho people of France did not eat much meat; they went in for poultry, fish, eggs, and things like that, but J during the war the soHwrs have got used to beef and mutton lati'nns, chiefly beef., and I expect more will be eaten 111 the future.than in the past. It may be that we shall build up an additional source of supply of meat in' Northern Africa—Algeria, Tunis, Morocco—and from the latter place, we may get a wool supply, hut, of course, very little as compared with our needs. Your wool we shall always want, and we shall be able to take a great deal of it. Wo •would like wheat, too, but I understand you do not grow sufficient to ex-'-port in any largo, quantities.'•' The suggestion that has been made to import Percheron draught horses into New Zealand was met by M. Corbiere by the reply that now would be a bad time to do it, even if the French Government allowed it. . "The drain on the Percheron stock has been enornious. Ail Percherons, except mares m foal, were requisitioned by the Government at the outbreak of war, to be used for, artillery and other war purposes. Then ' again, there has been very extensive buying by English breeders, the Commission under Lord purchasing a large number, price being 110 object. . It would not have been so bad if our breeders had sold stallions only, but the high prices tempted many to sell their mares, and this would have a very severe effect upon the industry, which will have to be built up again. To show the scarcity of Percheron mares, an English breeder who had bought a stallion actually sont to Canada to buy twenty mares for shipn'ient to England, as he could not get them in France." -•

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/DOM19190121.2.73

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 99, 21 January 1919, Page 6

Word count
Tapeke kupu
977

FARMING IN FRANCE Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 99, 21 January 1919, Page 6

FARMING IN FRANCE Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 99, 21 January 1919, Page 6

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