USE OF FERTILISERS

Hokitika Guardian, 21 December 1932, Page 7

USE OF FERTILISERS

| ECONOMIC IMPORTANCE. INCREASING PRODUCTION. . AUCKLAND, December 20. “With prices for agricultural product, at low levels, it is only the in.eiiSive farmer who can expect to obtain a profit from the land,” said •Lieutenant-Colonel G. F. PoJlitt, a director of Imperial Chemical Indust’.'iu',, Limited, yesterday. He i s in Auckland in the course of a world business tour; The use of artificial fertiliser, he said, was imperative for the development of intensive fanning, and he had been pleased to notice that New Zealand farmers generally were alive to the position. “During a month in New Zealand, I have had ample proof that the best fanners ar© fully alive to the advisability of increasing production by the use of nitrogenous fertiliser,” Colonel Pollitt said. “Our sales are increasing, and but for the prevailing depression they would be better still. In New Zealand, nitrogenous fertilisers must, of course, he used! in conjunction with superphosphate, and the Dominion is singularly fortunate in having access to th e phosphate deposits of Naum and Ocean Islands. , “The operations of Government research workers and private experiments in the use of fertilisers have had a marked educative effect, and are bound to prove of the greatest value in the future. They have ishown that it is possible to make a small farm a paying proposition, and it is through the small farms and the small, intensive farmers that the great agricultural countries of the world have grown.

“The only farmer who can live at anywhere near to-day’s price levels is the intensive farmer, who produces the maximum possible yield from a relatively small number of acres. The intensive farmer is {Definitely taking the place of the large landowner. It is a tendency which must extend and in New Zealand thorp can he seen a distinct movement in this direction. “Small farm schemes have many points to commend them, but perhaps the greatest is that the small area, intensively fanned, is one of the most potent factors in mccfern agricultural developments. ' Artificial fertilisers have .already proved themselves, as much in New Zealand as in any other country, and in any small farm scheme their importance should not- be overlooked.”