PRACTICAL FARMING

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLV, Issue 123, 28 April 1925, Page 6

PRACTICAL FARMING

ADDRESS BY MR J. LINKLATER, M.P. BEFORE LUNCHEON CLUB MEMBERS At to-day’s meeting of the Luncheon Club, over which Mr J.'A. McLeavey prosided, Mr J. Linklator, member of I’ailiaimerit for Manawatu, delivered an address on practical farming, a subject in which he is fully experienced. In introducing his subject, the speaker stated that he did so with a good deal of diffidence, for he was fronted by a gathering of brainy people. “Not that farming is not brainy work,” added Air Linklater, “but the farmer does not say anything about it. (Laughter.) You are, however, business gentlemen engaged for the most part in matters quite foreign to such a subject as 1 um to present to you. “There is one fact,” continued the speaker, “that is very certain, and that is that Palmerston North is the centre of one of the finest agricultural and pastoral lands in New Zealand, while your whole commercial interests arc bound up ill the matter of practical farming, for it affects the welfare of every man, woman and child in this community. When we look around the Manawatu with its line farms and smiling homesteads to-day, we lind it hard to realise that only as far back as the middle of last century the country was a wilderness and the only inhabitants a race of savages. No one can realise the great hardships contended with by the pioneers in carving homes out of the wilderness, but we do know that they had lion hearts and were men of “grout determination and courage and to whom we of ihe present generation owe a debt* of gratitude.” CLEARING BUSH LAND.

Proceeding to describe the methods employed in clearing bush land, the speaker said: “Bushfellers always underscrub for a considerable distance in front of the line of big timber. Then the big trees are felled and when tile bush is sufficiently dry burning operations are commenced. Tho difficulty of getting good burns was one of the trials which faced the pioneer. Tho land had then to be grassed and many good crops were grown on the new burns, while it is on record that much wheat was grown in the early days among the logs of the burn. The early settlors have handed down to us a wonderful heritage which it is our duty to develop to the betterment and advancement of the Dominion.”

The speaker then reviewed the early history of the importation of sheep and cattle into the Manawatu, and the development of the dairying industry in this centre, which is to-day such an important factor in the life of the people ot the district. The province enjoyed an ideal climate for dairy farming, be stated, and the standard maintained in tile quality of the fin. ished product had placed Alanawatu in the forefront both as regards quality as well as quantity. ADVENT OF ELECTRICITY.

“Tho advent of electricity,” continued the speaker, "is proving a great boon to the dairy farmers, and it is now possible for a farmer and his family to milk with the aid of such power and milking machines 100 cows, which under former conditions was impossible.” Various aspects of the important role electric power was playing were touched upon, and which the speaker maintained, was converting a life ot drudgery into a life of pleasure. In the closing sections of his address, the speaker, reierring to tho prospects ot the future, stated that, tho wool farmer had enjoyed a wonderful year, while the dairy tanner had received payable prices for his produce. The town bad shared in such prosperity, for after all towns were in big measure dependent on tho success of the farming community. At the conclusion of Ins address, Mr Linklate was accorded a hearty vote of. thanks on the motion of Air J. Balsillie, who. in referring to the days when he had first, become acquainted with farming operations in New Zealand, stated that the land was then in its virgin state. lo enable the farmer to maintain his high standard of production it was essential for him today to replace the strength taken out of the soil.