The Times. Published on Tuesday and Friday Afternoons. TUESDAY, JULY 5, 1921. BETTER FARMING.

Franklin Times, Volume 9, Issue 647, 5 July 1921, Page 4

The Times. Published on Tuesday and Friday Afternoons.

TUESDAY, JULY 5, 1921. BETTER FARMING.

I‘ \ ■ “We nothing.extenviate, nor aught set down in malice.” .. 1 , ■ ' I'

As every farmer farms to make, money he is naturally interested in considering what lines of farming make the most money It is almost his daily occupation to watch the newspapers and the markets or hear his neighbours’ views to keep up to date with the ever-changing answer, to his perpetual question, “How’s things?” Comfort will lately have been gained from the improved sheep market, the brighter outlook for lamb, and the firmer demand for wool, while all classes of cattle carry higher values to-day than they carried a month ago. There is a very general agreement among authorative men that better times will prevail after next Christmas. Hence our farming communities have reasonable justification for making preparations to produce. It is obvious that if it pays to produce a little it pays better to produce a lot, so that the consistent aim should be to so plan one’s operations that the greatest balance of profit may result per acre and per man. In such plans a leading place must be found for the better care of the properties, for the waste areas which abound in all directions are not conducive to good returns nor to the welfare of more diligent neighbours, whose properties suffer from the adjoining rabbit haunts. One is accustomed in these days to hear demands made for the opening of native lands, but it would seem that there is ample scope for a cleaning-up among the lands of the absentee pakehas before one needs to start dispossessing the race which, on the basis of years, is the senior partner in the firm of New- Zealand. But to come back to our own farms,’ the outlook seems to warrant increased enterprise, not in wasteful directions, but in ways that increase the stock carried and the quantity and quality of food pro-

vided for them. The subject is opportune to-day, because winter time is a suitable : planning time* and as the habit of being a little ahead of the alimanae is a difficult habit •tp acquire on a farm one'cannot; v be too early in making tthe plans. .In the Waikato areas to which the Times ciiculates dairying is the predominant industry, and it appears to be one of those where the greatest scope exists for, increasing the output. The increase may be sought in three main s< urces, namely, better .stock, b tter food, and better prices. The latter point may safely be left to the col operative directors, who show no lack of keenness in exacting from the world’s markets the last peony, -Bettel milking cattle depend largely on the use of bkter sires apd a more systematic and conscientious selection of 'young stock for rearing. Unfortunately the work of the most painstaking men in this direction, though giving its reward in their ownherds, is very much counteracted in the markets generally ' by the indis-criminate-stock and by the contaminating influence in the sale pens of stock with contagious udders. This latter danger is all the more i egrettable to-day because so many inexperienced beginners, are; buying, and a large number of these are soldiers. Tt would be advisable that the law 7 should be made to protect buyers by making the -vendors •of contagious qows • more distinctly liable for all the damage resulting from the introduction of such stock into healthy herds. - As the loss caused by one dis 7; eased cow may sometimes be reck- 1 oi.ed in three figures such a laW would be a . powerful deterrent in 1 the matter of sires the extra cost* of f a good one may mean only a few shillings per cow, but it adds several I pounds to the value of .each heifet calf, so that even a man who is dairying merely as.a ms-ms cl s* ’g his ; farm stands to win by the use of a good, sire as much as the permanent settler. The .most immediate means of increasing output, however, is to be found in greater use of the plough for fodder § crop growing. If J,.,- 5 - plough,, a pair ,of horses, and a set of disC harows can double the butter/ fat cheque of an average grass dairy farm the present seems to be a good time to increase the outlay, f° r > in the fairly light soils of Waikato, winter ploughing* is permissible, and the fallowing between now and the seed time of spring add 50 per cent, over the return from an unfallowed field. And ail the extra crop is net profit. No man can fully and safely stock his grass for the flush period unless he makes preparations. by extra cropping to augment the; supply , in the two periods of scarcity-date summer and late winter. These facts are well known; to most agricultural men, but it is hoped this reminder at a useful moment may be helpfuL.