COURT YOUR BUYER!

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 106, 1 November 1933, Page 18

COURT YOUR BUYER!

In these clays of "quotas," it must not be forgotten that quality will in the long run count. If all cheese was simply cheese, simply the same cheese, then a quota system insisting on the consumption of equal parts of British cheese and of imported cheeso might be workable. But there are many kinds of cheese; and in any one kind of cheese there are various qualities. Sooner or later, therefore, a quota system that does not consider quality will be quarrelled with by the consumer. If the consumer is everybody—you, and I, and the man in the street—he may be more tolerant of the sort of cheese a quota system would try to impose on him. "The public is an ass." But if the consumer is a manufacturer, and one whose manufacture will suffer if its components are not correct in quality, then this manufacturer will want to know that he is buying the right tiling. It is easier tt stuff the wrong cheese into the public than' to stuff the wrong malting barley into the brewery, or the wrong wheat into the flour mill, or the wrong flour into the bakehouse. A producer of cheese may consider his consumers (he will be wise to do so) but a producer of malting barley must. The brewer knows what he needs. A quota system that prevented him from buying what he needs —from buying it in any country where he can get it—would have a screw loose. LESS TAX, MORE BEER, MORI! BARLEY. Recently the British brewers promised "to use as much English barley as is possible," and this promise has caused many' English farmers to hope for an increased demand for malting barley"; but Rothamsted investigations show that the brewery demand is a specialised demand for a barley whose producer finds himself dependent on variable factors of soil, season, and manuring. All barley is far from being the same- barley; and it is difficult to see how importing of barleys is to cease. A recent reduction in the tax on beer in Britain is expected to increase the consumption of beer. There, as in New Zealand, it "has'fallen off. Also, in New Zealand, arrests for drunkenness have fallen remarkably. In Britain, as here, it is hox^ed that beerdrinking (but not drunkenness) will revive. Experiments have been carried on for ten years not only at Rothamsted but at Woburn, and the British Institute of Brewing has interested itself in the matter. From a malting barley point of view, soil performances in Britain vary greatly, and it is hardly to be supposed that deductions on so complex a subject in one country would be applicable to another; yet the general complexity revealed may be a reminder to barley producers in New Zealand of the general difficulties of the situation to bo faced if a country is to produce a worth-while beer, for use rather than for abuse. "Field experiments," . reports the London correspondent of the "Evening Post," for ten years "have been made at Rothamsted and at Woburn, also on a' number of barley-growing farms in different parts of the country; their purpose was to find how the yield, composition, and market valuation of barley are affected by soilj season, and manuring, and they have given a vast amount of information of great value to the agricultural expert and to the barley grower. ■ Most practical brewers maintain (says the Bothamsted Report) that they cannot obtain the results they want without a proportion of the'more husky six-rowed barley to assist drainage in the mash tun, and it is for the research worker to discover whether such barleys cannot be economically produced here co as to satisfy all requirements. This work is still going on. VARYING WATER CONTENTS. Agriculturists should also remember in comparing the relative demands for English and for Californian barley, that Californian barley contains much less ■water than English—only about 10' to

QUALITY MUST BE RIGHT

WEAK POINT IN QUOTAS

12 per cent, as against 15 per cent, in a good year and 18 per cent, in a bad year for English barleys. In consequence Califoniian barley not only yields some 6 or 7 per cent, more malt per quarter than English, but, being drier, it can be held in store at the docks or elsewhere for two years without any treatment not only without deterioration, but with frequent improvements; while British barley usually has to be kiln-dried, which is a troublesome business. Meanwhile, in view of the restricted demand, it is only courting disappointment to attempt anything like overproduction of malting barley The chief factors in determining quality are the soil and the weather. Certain fields will nearly always produce good malting barleys (harvest conditions being favourable), others only rarely do so. Medium to light loams are the most trustworthy soils, heavy loams and sands come next, and fen soils and clays are the least likely to give good samples. Of all these soils the sandy ones are the most speculative; bur best and our worst samples have come from them. ■-' One of the varieties tested, PlumageArcher and Spratt-Archer are the best, giving about 5 to 10 per cent. more yield than most others; Plumage-Archer yields slightly less, but its 1000 corn weight is better, and its average valuation is slightly above that of SprattArcher. BENEFITS OF THE FALLOW. In regard to cultivation, fallow has in our experiments been the best previous treatment of the land both for yield and quality. In practice a dead fallow would be out of the question, excepting on a mechanised grain farm, but autumn cultivation would be the next best thing. This could be given after a preceding grain crop or after a seeds ley. What form the cultivation should take must, of course, be determined by the actual conditions of the farm, but it should give as nearly as is possible the effects of a bastard fallow. Against, the benefits' of the fallow must be set the less of nitrogen' involved, but it remains to be seen how far this would be made good by the clover in the seeds break. Barley will nqt tolerate acidity of the soil, and the Woburn experiments show that' it suffers more easily from this cause than any of the other cereals. The first sign of acidity is patchiness in the crop; the root crops and clover also tell the tale to those who can read it; swedes get "finger-and-toe," and mangels and sugar beet fail to grow up^ .they start into growth but do not develop. Clpver dies in .patches during winter. If the crops show these' signs, lime should be added to the soil. Manuring if properly carried out raises the yield without injuring the quality; indeed, it improves the valuation set on the grain by the buyer. The most important constituent is nitrogen, and the most useful quantity to add is 201b per acre; this corresponds to lewt sulphate of ammonia or ljcwt nitrate of soda given at the time of seeding. It used to be thought that nitrogenous manuring would injure the quality of the. grain, and both agricultural- experts and malsters have in the past advised against it. There ma}' have been some cause for anxiety in the old days with the old varieties, but with Plumage-Archer and Spratt-'Archer ■there is little to fear; they stand up to this quantity of manure and they commonly, giyo in .return an additional 5 or C bushels of* grain with no"'loss of quality whatsoever. No pale ' ale brewer will : buy "weathered" barley, or malt made from it, and no brewer lor malster will buy any barley if its germinating capacity has been injured by either adverse weather during harvest or by the after-effects of stacking—always more serious when harvesting conditions are adverse. When a.large part of the home crop is injured, as happens in exceptionally wet harvest seasons, malsters ' and brewers naturally purchase a larger proportion of barley coming from those countries where the harvest weather was better than in their own country.