Farming Notes.

Feilding Star, Volume XVI, Issue 175, 24 January 1895, Page 2

Farming Notes.

(By " Agricola.") HAY-MAKING. The farmers wbo secured their hay before the wet weather set in must be considered fortunate. Those who did not start to cart before this month have had a bad time of it. I find the hay crops in many places not very heavy this season, owing no doubt to the long spell of dry weather we have experienced. HARVEST-TIMB. We may consider that the harvesttime has once more arrived, and that farmers are making preparations to secure their crops. The weather is not at all favorable to harvesting operations, and those who have ripe grain are beginning to feel anxious. The showers, however, have done an immense amount of good to the grass and all root crops, which were languishing for- want of rain have grown wonderfully lately. The cereal, as well as the hay crops are are somewhat light in many places There is a prospect of an improvement in the prices of grain this season. The Argentine— the great grain I growing country — is not likely to produce so much as usual, so that New Zealand farmers will be the gainers unless there is some other country which has a surplus to get rid of. HARDENING OF THE MARKETS. Notwithstanding the complaints which I have been compelled to listen. to lately about the low price of produce, the tightness of money and the hard times, there is a little tinge of light coming over the horizon, the prices of wool and frozen meat are hardening and the farmers are cheered. They need ft very much. ALL EGGS IN ONE BASKET. I have touched on this subject before. I see you published some remarks of a Glasgow merchant under the heading of " Pigs as producers of wealth." I am sorry that Mr Vecht should have to remove to or establish his pork' preserving factory in Australia on account of his not finding in New Zealand as many of the "gintleman aa pays the rint " to keep his factory in full work. As I have stated in previous notes farmers— especially farmers of small areas— will have to adopt the method or methods of making money out of more things than one or two on a farm to compete in the market and to make farming pay. This brings out the question. DOES FARMING PAY? A gentleman who lately paid a visit to the Old Country told me that he got into conversation with a farmer there who informed liim that farming did not really pay interest on the capital outlayed. Then queried our visitor: "Why are you so anxious to put your sons on farms if farming does not pay? Why not put them to some trades or in some professions ? I cannot see why you are bo anxious to get farms when you say they do not pay. I Bee when there is a farm to let that dozens of you put in for it." " Well you see, said the farmer, it is like this : We can manage to get stock off our own farms apd give our sons a start. As for putting them at any trades or in some professions — well, the fact of the matter is trades and professions are overdone — we have too many of that sort." Our visitor of course did not fail to put in a word for our own country, and caused the far* mers to open their eyes when he related to them about the colossal fortunes some of the New Zealand farmers had built up. He was surprised to hear such a number of farmers in the two Western Counties he had visited express their ignorance of the Australian colonies — New Zealand in particular. He suggests that more publicity should be given at Home of what our colony can produce and the facilities it offers to practical farmers. THE OPINION OF A NEW SOUTH WALES MAN. " Look here," said he, " I have travelled through a great part of America, I have been through Canada, the Argentine Republic, Victoria, and have been settled for some years in New England, some three hundred miles back from Sydney, but I have never seen such a beautiful country as you have got here. I intend when I go back to try and sell out and come over here and settle. Why, man, you have a typical paradise here compared to us in New South Wales, and you talk about the hard times. It is nothing to be compared to the state of affairs over with us. The banks own pretty well all we call ours over there, and you know what the banks have baen doing lately." Farmers "Cheer up " after that description " and don't let your spirits go down."