HINTS TO SMALL FARMERS.

Patea Mail, Volume IV, Issue 327, 5 June 1878, Page 4

HINTS TO SMALL FARMERS.

[From the “ N.Z. County Journal.”] A country not over-burdened with population, having good soil and a genial climate ; a country where a pewon taking up land can, with a moderate capital and a fair amount of industry, raise sufficient to eat and wear, pay his way, and have a little surplus cash—-that is the country that may be pitched upon as a future homo. Now, while agriculturists claim for their vocation a primary place in the long list of industries, while it is a healthy and agreeable occupation, it is not one which will readily make a fierson wealthy in the usual sense of that word, a living may be made, but not a fortune. A farmer may have abundance of the good things of this life—it will be his own fault if he has not—but ho may not have any large amount of money to las credit in the bank. Once ho has got a fair start, and adopted a proper system of farming operations, he may congratulate himself on his position, and find himself making steady and safe progress. But ho must not start out with the idea that farming is about todo wonders for him, or else he may find himself disappointed. The agricultural statistics of Now Zealand for 1877, disclose the fact that there were at that time 18,700 persons who had holdings of land, upwards of 12,000 of these holdings being freehold. Auckland appears to have the hugest amount of freeholders, the numbers being 3450 : Canterbury comes next with 2760 ; Otago has 2675 ; Wellington 1478 ; while all the other provincial districts number less than a thousand each. Many parts of this colony are eminently adapted to that numerous class of holders of land known as small fanners —that is, adapted to those whoso farms range from 50 to 200 acres. Farmers of this description have been encouraged to come out to this country; special settlements have been organised for their particular benefit. And a good deal of the prosperity of the colony must depend not in having a lot of ruuboldors who are in possession of immense tracts of land but in having a population consisting mainly of agriculturists who can work their own farms, and who are bringing up their sons and daughters in the practice of industry, economy, and intelligence. Every province lias its small farms; it is very desirable that they should be prosperous and contented. They should by every possible means bo encouraged in their farming operations. The method of farming to be adopted and pursued by this class of husbandmen must be very different from that carried out in very extensive holdings. If we take Adelaide, for instance, many of the colonists there turn their whole attention to growing wheat ; and although the average yield per acre is only from five fifteen bushels, it seems to pay. But the expenses of getting in and reaping crop are merely nominal, reduced by the employment of machinery t® a minimum cost; ploughing very shallow and leaving the gram until thoroughly ripe, they have machines that reap and thresh the wheat by a simple process. In California too, grain is grown in a somewhat similar way. Fields of wheat, consisting of 2000 to 5000 acres are not uncommon in some parts of that State. As a matter of course the method of cultivation in these countries, year after year, tends to a depreciation of the land. Thousands of acres will not now produce a payable crop, although the cost of cultivating is so trifling. Other settlers, both in Australia and the southern parts of the colony, go in very largely for sheep, and some of them make fortunes out of wool and mutton. Ho thatholdors ol extensive farms cun, if they choose, confine thornselves to one thing—lt may be gram, cattle, or sheep.