FARM AND GARDEN.
FARMERS OF THE FUTURE. At the Farmers' Institute banquet at Woodstock, United States, in response to a toast to the ''Farmer of the Future," Mr F. I. Mann spoke the following "The farmer of the future will be a hundred-bushel man. He will have hundred-bushel land and will produce hundred-bushel crops. He will look on his fields as great laboratories where in tire soil that has been best prepared to furnish food and a home for'plants, supplemented by the sunshine and rainfall, reactions are induced that produce harvests limited only by uncontrolled natural conditions. The farmer of the future will know chemistry enough to know the composition of his soil, to know its deficiencies and how to supply them. He will know that crops are not made out of nothing, but must be made in his great laboratory, from certain known chemical elements, some of which may need to be supplied. The farmer of the future will know biology enough to know that his soil is a mass of living matter containing as many species of life, pehaps, as there are in the air above the soil. He will know the life history of these —enough to know what to do to encourage the helpful and to discourage the harmful. "The farmer of the future will know the science of breeding—enough to use the products of the master breeder's science and art. All his crops, whether it be horses, cattle and hogs, or corn, cats and clover, will be of the highest quality developed through knowing the laws of reproduction. The farmer of the future will study sociology. He will know his true relations to his neighbour and to his church. The farmer of the future will know that the soil is the base of all industry, and that abundant food supplies is the basis of high civilisation. To business industries and to higher civilisation the farmer of the future will do his 1 - full part."
CREDIT BANKS. The current issue of the "Scottish Bankers' Magazine" contains a useful article on "Credit Banks." The article in question is written by Mr Nugent Harris, the secretary of the English Agricultural Organisation Society. From this article we learn that the system of credit banks bears the well known legend "Made in Germany. ■' The originator of the system was Herr Railfeisen, who was born in Westphalia in Owing to ill health, he was unable to enter the German army, but he secured a subordinate position in the Civil Service. The extreme poverty of the German peasants led him to endeavour to do something to help them, and in IS4S, with a capital of only £3OO, he set up his first "Village Bank." Mr Wofl, in his book on 'People's Banks," says: "Modest, unassuming, content to do his work in his own circumscribed sphere, he attempted no advertising and no noisy propaganda. It his work was good and useful he tusted that it would prove its own best advocate. The result has amply justified his confidencce. The system at first spread slowly. It wa-s five years (1554) before a second bank was formed. Not till 181)2 was a third established, not till IS6S a fourth, not till 1874 did the banks become at all evidently known; and not til! ISSO did they begin to multiply exceedingly. From that time onward, however, they spead with astonishing rapidity in Germany, and then in IeSO it was announced that had breathed his last.- Half Germany mourned over her benefactor by the name by which he is still fondly remembered — that of "Father Raift'eisen." According to the "Bulletin of the Bureau of Economic and Social Intelligence" recently issued by the In tenational Institute of Agriculture at Rome, the number of Raift'eisen Banks in Germany alone on Ist ,lune, 1910, was 15,476, and the "Bulletin" refers to them as forming "the basis of the great edifice of co-operation in Germany." The object of these credit bunks, which have secured such a firm foothold in Germany, and are being introduced into thi3 country, is to enable small farmers, small holders, and market gardeners to obtain advances at a low rate of interest for application to reproductive purposes. The ordinary joint stock banks are generally willing enough to advance. Scottish bankers, by opening the columns of their "Magazine" to this plea for credit banks, are desirous of having their business conducted on similar lines, namely, on "a non-profit-making basis," and all the work done in connection with thee banks "in an honorary capacity!" THE DAIRY COW. Now it may be questioned whether in the breeding of dairy cows we are yet out of the position of those who first began to devise the mechanical reaper —whether we are not clogged j up with ideas that are a hindrance to ! advance. The origin of our ideal j dairy cow dates back to the middle of j the eighteenth century, to the time j when men began to differentiate between beef breeds and dairy breeds, and to the cow which at that time attracted most attention as a dairy : cow -the old Suffolk Dun. In 1735 John Kirby described her as having | "a clean throat, with little dewlap, i a snake head, thin and short legs, the ribs springing well from the centre j of the back, the carcase large, the ! belly heavy, the backbone ridged, the ■ chine thin and hollow, the loin nar- j row, the udder square, large, loose ; and creased when empty, the milk i veins remarkably large and rising in j knotty puffs, and this so general that j I scarcely ever saw a famous milker j that did not possess this point, a j general habit of leanness, hip bones j high and ill-covered, and scarcely any ! part of the carcase so formed and | covered as to please an eye that is accustomed to fat beasts of the liner beeds." Here, in rough draft, is I the modern agricultural write's formula for distinguishing the producers of milk from those that are merely producers of beef.
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King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 357, 3 May 1911, Page 2
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1,010FARM AND GARDEN. King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 357, 3 May 1911, Page 2
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