DAYLIGHT SAVING ON THE FARM

Hokitika Guardian, 4 October 1927, Page 2

DAYLIGHT SAVING ON THE FARM

(By a farmer’s wife in the Auckland “Star.”) The argument that. the fanner is going to ho victimised has boon loud n.iid persistent, but is there anything sound in it? On this farm we have practised it, that is, wo have put the clocks on an hour every summer l-or years, and can bear witnesses to its advantages. It was only when, with tho improvement of tho roads, we drew a. little nearer the outside world, that we found the slightest inconvenience. True, we arc not a dairy farm. The milking people, we are told, use all the daylight there is, in any case. Then why grudge the same privilege to other people ? As a matter of fact though I have heard many spokesmen of the farmer declaim against the cruel injustices the innovation will he to the dairyman 1 have never known a. farmer 01‘ a farmer’s wife who anticipated any difficulties on his or her own account. The arguments against it'arc two: (l)That the dairyman will have to get up an hour before daylight in order to have his milk ready for the milk train or his cream for the cream lorry Answer: The trains and lorries run now to suit the freight. It is reasonable to suppose they will continue to do so. Tho lorries are under the control of the dairy factories. They must run to tho suppliers convenience. There is no reason to suppose the Railway Department- will prove more unreasonable about the trains. (2) That the dairyman's children will not he able to milk 'their quota of cows before they go to school. I should not like to insist too strongly that children ought not to he expected to milk. It is often necessary, and does not always work out so badly. But if child labour is Valuable before school, it should he equally valuable after school and school will ibe out ail hour earlier. In other words, if a child call milk only one cow instead of live in the mornings, he or she can milk five instead of one in the afternoon. So where is tlie loss? I know that dairying is the premier industry of this province, but there are many other farms 1 iTce our own where breakfast is at (seven all tho year round, and we have proved the advantage of keeping the clock an hour forward during the summer. The men like it because of the freshness and pleasantness of the morning and the long evenings to loaf or play. The boss likes it because a late start caused by a shower or rain or other delay can he to some extent made up. Ib p farmer’s wife likes it for all these reasons, and especially because she finds that tho little misadventures incidental to the homestead are most apt to occur in the early hours of the morning, lit is then that the hen takes her newly hatched Chicks in the wet grass and loses some; tho birds have a free hand (or beak) among the fruit and tho seedbeds, the pet. lamb slips into the garden and eats the roses and carnations clean off. Everything is to he gained on a farm by being awake and abroad when nature wakes. Farming is mainly a. fight against nature. It is a pity to give her an hour’s start a ,day.

People have been so busy proving that isummer time will be an injury to the farmer that it has been assumed that it will be an unmixed blessing for the city man. It will give him an hour longer for play. Sounds well! But do we not play a little too much in New Zealand as it is? Me all know that the more play we have the more we want, that our minds get absorbed in the sport, so that we think less about work. We are wrestling with a period of depression. ]t seems to me the only danger of adopting summer time is that it may encourage a .spirit of play at a time when work is the important consideration.