FARM NOTES.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXV, Issue 4682, 2 April 1924, Page 4

FARM NOTES.

FARMERS IN OTHER LANDS. HOW THEY ARE FARING. It is well at times to know how fanners in other countries are pro. grossing in order primarily that wo may realise the advantages we possess and which we are apt at times to forget. Take the dairy farmers of England. Foot and mouth disease is causing such havoc that in some districts th -' da’ry herds are being almost wiped out. Cheshire is the county which is particularly hard hit. It is being declared that in very many daily farms in that great dairying country there is not a cow left. One authority declares that over 250 Cheshire farms have lost all their cattle. Un to the beginning of December 88,76'1 animals were slaughtered in Britain in sixteen weeks.

The tragedy' of agriculture in Canada to day (says a correspondent) is that the conditions in which farmers find themselves cannot be remedied at. once, either by themselves, or by the Government, or by any one else. Everybody is being blamed for what is everybody’s fault. It is not alone the fault of the war, or the banks, or the railroads, or the tariff, or the Government, or the loan companies, or the Weather, or the country, or the Press, that agriculture is not a paying business at the present time and not likely' to be very' profitable for the next year or two. Yet, inasmuch as each of these factors may have contributed to the bringing about of sucn conditions, it is the fault of each.

Grass has been so scarce in South Africa that the Government is coming to the aid of farmers with supplies of spineless cactus leaves. These are being supplied from schools of agriculture and Government agriculture experimental stations. Prices range from %d per leaf to 8s 6d per bag. Anthrax i.s causing great havoc in the Philippine Islands. It is estimated that over 7000 work animals have died within a month, and a considerable number of men, have died from the disease.

The dairy farmers in the United States are doing better than any other class of farmer, but according to a late cablegram foot and mouth disease has entered that country, and if the scourge is not checked it must mean a heavy toll of the dairy herds. The dreaded disease of rinderpest has made its appearance in Western Australia. Hverj' endeavour is being made by the State and Commonwealth Governments to keep it from spreading to other parts of Australia It is rather significant in connection with the appearance of this disastrous trouble that a continental country has countermanded a big order for meat it. was purchasing from Western Australian, giving as a reason the presence of rinderpest in that country.