Farming Notes

Feilding Star, Volume XV, Issue 116, 14 November 1893, Page 2

Farming Notes

(by our travelling correspondent). POTATOE GROWING Those who were fortunate enough to grow a quantity of the taiawa, the Irish peach, or what is commonly termed in Colonial phrasiology spuds last season, innnnged to pet good value for their labours. I bear that this season large areas of land are being prepared and planted in potatoes. The farmers in New Zealand are very much like little sheep. I don't state that they are " sheepish " in the common acceptation of the term, but they resemble sheep in the manner in which one runs after the other. One farmer grows a lot of potatoes and makes money out of them, the next season all his neighbours round about grow large quantities and the market is glutted. It is the same in sheep breeding and cattle rearing, one farmer makes money out of sheep and his neighbour sells off all his cattle and goes in for sheep breeding. Another makes a good spec out of cattle, his neighbour sells nil his sheep and goes in for cattle breeding. Not long ago milch cows were at a discount, lately the prices went up with ;a bound from L 2 to L 8 and LIO. In fact the prices of all kinds of cattle went up with a rush just as sheep did about two years ago. The establishing of freezing companies throughout the country no doubt caused the sudden rise in the prices of sheep, just as the establishing of dairy factories caused a sudden rise in the price of cows. The prices of sheep and cattle I notice have a downward tendency just now. A REMEDY SUGGESTED Now, to regulate such matters. I would suggest that the farmers take a lesson or two from those who live by the soil in our Fatherland. " Oh," I hear some one say, " what's the use of following in the foot steps of those old fogies, they are a century behind the time," Wait a bit, I'll let you know what practical farmers are beginning to think and say about farming. " Look here," they have said to me, " this continually grazing of sheep on the same land year after year will never do. We are trying one specific and then another, and yet the mortality amongst our sheep is increasing every year. We must have cattle as well as sheep (i.e., where we cannot plough our land), and the grass must have sufficient time to be sweetened before the sheep are removed from one paddock to' another. This can only be done by placing sheep and cattle alternately in the paddocks." Now this is what your " century behind the times '" farmers do in the Old Country. They would consider it suicidal policy, in more ways than one, to keep one kind of stock grazing on the same land year after year. Your " century behind the times " farmers in our Fatherland believe in making money out of {sheep, and cattle. This then is the remedy suggested— viz , to copy the example of experimental farmers, and so regulate the prices in the market. SNAILS. - The gardeners pest and the Frenchman's delight have made their appearance on the Makino road. As I waspassiug along the road early one morning they appeared to be as plentiful as I have seen them in the old country. "We are advancing in New Zealand if only at a snails pace. If the Maori could but only educate his taates as the Frenchman, would he not smack his lips when swallowing this species of the oyster, over which the Englishmen gloats, and say "Kapai tenoi — all the sumo as the pipe— by golly he good ? A WRINKLE. Paddy Murphy informs mo that if you wnnt to improve your aeed potatoes without giving fancy prices for such, just take the oyes out of one potato and place them in another. The potatoes must be of different kinds. [Any information on fanning or gardening will be thankfully received and acknowledged by •• Your Own."]