THE FARM.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 4, Issue 103, 3 November 1915, Page 4

THE FARM.

The prophecy was made ry Mr J. U. Harknes>s, secretary ot the National Dairy Association, in a speech at lha opmng ot the Te Horo cheese factjry, that before the tnd of the preaent year (milking season) the dairy produce exported from New Zealand would be worth £5,00'J,000. A few years ago the dairying industry was despised id New Zealand, said Mr Barkneas, vet it now promised to become the largest export trade of the Dominion.

A factor, in the Canadian dairy industry that is playing an increasingly important part is the mechanical milker, writes a Canadian correspondent in "Hoard's Dairyman." At first tbia machine made elow orogiets, but gradually a farmer here and there got one, and bis testimony to its efficiency counted for more with bis neighbours than the finest a torus in tbe papers. Now machines are being inttoduced everywhere, as many as sixty machines of one make being sold in one country in one month. One farmer of my acquaintance, Mr W. E. Thompson, of Oxford County, Ontario, has doubled his milking herd since getting a machine. He regards the labour problem as practi cally solved so far as milking is concerned.. It is significant that Mr Thompion is a breeder of purebred cattle. Our breeders were wary of the machine even when commercial dairymen had fully endorsed it. Now they, too, are buying machines, and in a few cases are using them for official test work; this when preilminary trials bad convinced them that mechanical milking does not decrease milk flow. Here and there, of course, we find men who have discarded tbe milker; but then, as Peter M'Arthur, our Canadian farmer-humourist, has said, "Some people couldn't run a wheelbarrow and not get it out of order." One often sees "nitrification" referred to as a vital process in fertile soils, but bow many know what it really means. It is tbe transformation in the soil of organic substances of a nitrogenous nature int > nitrates, or,, in other words, it is Nature's process of converting into a condition aj similative as plant food substances which are not primarily in that condition. It is by means of this wonderful process that farmyard manure, animal and vegetable refuse gradually change their character, or, as is commonly said, "decompose" and become su valuable to plants. But in order that this beneficial change may take i place in the soil, certain conditions are indispensable. Ihe air must be able to come into ,contact with the substances. The soil must be aerated. Tijis is done by good cultivation. "Good cultivation is equal to a manuring," according to an old saying, and tbe • more compact or heavier the soil the more necessary is good cultivation to admit the air. Then the presence of moisture 10 also essential. Nitrification cannot go on in soils absolutely dry, benca it is that.in the rainless districts of South America Peruvian guano remained unchanged for centuries, preserved by the climatic dryness, to fertilise the crops of our moiat lands. The presence of a basic substance in the soil is also essential, such as lime, hence partly the value ot liming and the advantage of applying a lime-supplying fertiliser, sucb as basic slag, to land rendered acid by organic matter, peaty land, etc. Again, if land is waterlogged, the process ot nitrification is stopped, because the oxygen in the air cannot penetrate the soil, hence the necessity of draining land of that character. It is the part of the farmer to assist, by proper measures, this natural process of nitrification. <