A JOINT STOCK FARM.

Patea Mail, 18 October 1882, Page 4

A JOINT STOCK FARM.

( Canterbury Times.) Experiments in joint stock farming have not generally been successful. The machinery of a Board of Directors is too cumbrous to be capable of ready application to the innumerable details of farm management, and it is also very apt to be fanciful, and not sufficiently economical. Everything must depend on the qualication of the manager, and if the selection of the manager goes by favour, it is not difficult to foresee the final result of the enterprise. Instances of successful joint-stock farming are, however, not altogether unknown. We have before us a report of a somewhat remarkable joint-stock farm in the Netherlands, this report being one which was laid before the Royal Commission on Agriculture. In the j’ear 180.9, twenty-three merchants of Rotterdam formed themselves into a Company, and purchased of the Government at a public sale a tract of some 3600 acres in extent. The laud was under water at high tide, but exposed at the extreme ebb. The price paid was £54,000, and in addition to this more than £40,000 were spent in building saw-mills, making a canal, and doing other necessary works for the protection and drainage of the land, 'ihe total capital of the Company is about £125,000, of which about £30,000 is employed as working farm capital. There are now 70 shares, held by 30 shareholders. The amount of profit on the 3600 acres divided annually between the shareholders in the years 1870 to 1878 inclusive, is thus summarised in the report. Land and dykes, &c., cost £94,000, at- 4 per cent, £3760 ; working capital of £30,000, at 5 per cent, £ISCO ; and these sums beingdeducted from the total profits leave a fanner’s profit of £1 per acre, more than 12 percent on the working capital of £30,000. Those highl}' satisfactory results are attributed chiefly to the ability of (he director, Mr Van den Bosch. The maintenance of the polder (a polder it may be explained, being a tract of land brought into cultivation after having been protected from inundation by means of em'bankments) is undertaken by the Government, and the proprietor can be.compelled to pay any tax that may be levied by the State, up to a certain limit, for this purpose. In this case, it amounts on an average to about 15s an acre per annum. The farm is divided into rectangular fields of from 20 to 25 acres, separated by neatly trimmed thorn hedges Open ditches, so common in the Netherlands, have been dispensed with on this estate the pipe draining system having been adopted. Of the 3,600 acres, 3,000 are kept under the plough, the remainder being in permanent grass, with the exception of a small portion required for gardens and cottages. When first reclaimed rape seed was generally the first crop taken, except in cases in which the land was so salt that it required to be pastured for some time, but rape seed has now been abandoned as an unremunerative crop. Afterwards the light land is worked in a seven course system of rotation, the crops grown being as follow ; Turnips, chevalier barley, veto-lies, rape, potatoes, beans, and rye. Sometimes "lucerne is sown on the light land with the beans, the crop remaining down seven years, and then going into rotation again. The heavy land is cropped on a course of 21 years’ duration, which necessarily includes a great variety of produce. The following is a list of the crop grown ; —Peas, wheat, beans, oats, red clover, artificial grasses, winter barley, carrnways, potatoes, turnips, swedes, mangolds, cabbage, flax, maize, and sugar beet. The wheat crop generally runs from 40 to 60 bushels to tire acre. There are only 350 head of cattle kept on the farm, the breed being a cross between the shorthorn and Dutch. The milk is sold in a neighboring town at about 7£d per gallon. The sheep number about 2,500, and are a cross between the Lincoln and Flemish. The yield of wool is from eight to ten pounds per bead, unwashed. Pigs are being done away with, as the bulk of the milk is sold, and they are not found a profitable kind of stock. There are about 100 working horses kept, which docs not appear a large number for their extensive and elaborate tillage operations, but the substitution of pipes for the Dutch system of open ditches has enabled Mr ’Van den Bosch to use steam cultivating machinery, and thus effect a large saving in horse-power. There are 200 people employed all the year round, and an additional 250 during harvest, so that the labour question is one of serious importance. Notwithstanding the farm being in every respect so well managed, the Dutch labourer is found to occupy a position very inferior to that of his English representative. For the nine months dating from March 1, the bead ploughman gets £ls with food and lodging, while the under ploughmen’s wages for the same period, range from £7 10s to £l2 10s, and the current rate of wages for. other labourers is 9s and 10s a week, without food and lodging. Women earn about half that amount- Ten hours and a-quarter is an ordinary working day, but in harvest it is two hours and a-balf It will be seen that the position of the Dutch labourer compares somewhat unfavorably with that of the farm hand in New Zealand. The rent of cottages varies from Is to Is 8d a week, and the best of them consist of one room, about 13 feet square. On‘one side are the windows and door, on another side the fireplace ; and the furniture usually consists of two box beds, with a cupboard between them, so that the Dutch labourer’s household arrangements are characterised by extreme simplicity. Indeed, all things considered, life must be to him a blessing of a doubtful order. Nevertheless, Mr Van den Bosch states that they are in a better condition than in former years ; but he regrets to say that the younger generation have not improved as to habits of sobriety, respect for superiors, &c.,nnd, as a climax, some of them arc actually “ not satisfied with their position in life, and try to change it.” Prosperity seems to have upset the moral equilibrium of the Dutch labourer altogether.