The Chronicle. PUBLISHED DAILY SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1990. INTELLIGENT FARMING

Horowhenua Chronicle, 24 September 1910, Page 2

The Chronicle. PUBLISHED DAILY SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1990. INTELLIGENT FARMING

The days have gone by for ever in which farming was pursued oil a haphazard process of lottery. The farmer of the present time has to lje a student ere he can achieve success as a cultivator, and each yeai the bounds of his purview extend. Twenty-five years ago in many pa.rts of Xew Zealand farming consisted in treating the ground : by burning off ■tihe stubble, ploughing in the asihes, and rotating crops of wheat and oats or barley and potatoes, as the respective farmers concerned might guess to be best for any one particular season. That primitive method is departed from altogether in these days, and the farmer is at once a chomist, a mathematician and a deeply-read philosopher. Incidentally these necessities (have developed the type of agriculturalist and pastoral ist to an extent that makes tho old-time pen pictures of Giles Clodhopper and Martin Treadfumm as absurdly unreal as the stage Irishman appears to be. As a matter of fact, the farmer of the older days, who is now laid' to rest, was never the lamentably-deficient personage that his detractors have represented him to be; but it is just as great a truth that the fanner type of these times is wider-eyed, and brcader-miniUjd. and clearerhrainod, than were those amongst whom the writer of this article assimilated his somewhat superficial knowledge of fanning as it was in tho 'eighties.

One of the most marked developments of the last decade is the improved manner in wliieh statistical is made available to ell those farmers wlho are sufficiently open-minded to profit by the opportunities afforded by studies in thi;. respect of their profession. For instance, an agriculturalist wiho studies closely the anticipations for (say) wheat, made in 1910, may make up his mind, with reasonable hopes oi successful augury, as to which crop he himself will sow next season. In this respect the Government Yeaa Book gives some valuable data for farmers' guidance. Advance siheets which ihave .reached Levin this week give many interesting particulars in •regard to w/heat. One item of guidance is to be found in the fact that estimates of wheat yields.for the world in 1909-10 showed a great excess over those for the twelve 'months immediately 'preceding. In quarters (of 4801bs), the figures for 1909-10 wore 449,110, an increase oi over forty thousand quarters by comparison -with tihe records foi

1908-9. In New Zealand, the estimates for 1909-10 give the following α-esults:—"The wheat harvest of 1910 showed an estimated average yield of 28 bushels per acre, the crop realised being 8,6(31,100 bushels, against 8,772,790 bushels in 1909. Tihe estimateu average yield per acre is GJ- bushels below that oi the previous season, an exceedingly liberal allowance having been made for the effects of high winds and dry weather in December, and tliG ravages of small 'birds and otHier pests. The estimated area undei wihoat foir threshing increased from 252,891 acres in 1909 to 311,000 acres in 1910, and the increase was general througont i!ic dominion."

Othor items which wo cull from tho .advance sheets, as being ol special interest to a nnrtly pastoral and partly fruit growing district such as ours, have reference to turnips, the Year Book observes tJlint "Turnips and rape form a most important crop in a sheep-breeding country such as .\cw Zealand. ii. 1892 the area of land under this crop amounted to 422,359 acres. The returns for 1898 gave only 470.58 L acres, but for tho 1909-10 season 749,585 acres (524,550 acres in turnips and 225,035 acres in rape) were sot down as under these crops." In •regard to orchards and gardens, the same authority observes lfh<at in 1910 "the extent of land in garden was 19,355 acres, of which 14,621 acres were private gardens and -1736 acres market gardens. Tn plantations of forest trees there werc 65,063 acres. There were 28,554 acres in orchard in 1909, an increase of 931 acres on the area so returned in the previous year, and 663 acres were returned as 'vineyard, , as against 621 acres in 1908. No account of tho produce o orchards has yet been taken.' To-day's illustrations must conclude with an oxcorpt respecting artificial grass areas:—"At the-begin-ning of the year 1909 there were 13,623,528 acres under artificial grasses. Of these, 4,755,323 acres had been -previously ploughed, presumably under grain or other crops, while 8,868,205 acres 3md, not been ploughed. Much of the latter area was bush or forest land, sown down in grass after the timber h.od been wholly or partially burnt off."