REVOLUTION IN FARMING.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 9, Issue 590, 7 December 1920, Page 2

REVOLUTION IN FARMING.

NEW FRENCH METHOD.

Considerable attention has been attracted to the agricultural mec'iods of a farmer in the province of Dauphine (says the Paris correspondent oi the London Observer). Altnough the process employed may be regarded as still in the experimental stage, the results already produced are such that the Council of the Department of the Isere has voted large credits for further essays, and the director of agricultural services of the district declares that a veritable revo Union in farming will be produced. French agricultural journals have sent experts to examine on the spot the procedure of M. Pion Gaud, Popular newspapers, like the Matin, have contained columns concerning these discoveries. It is asserted that were the methods of M. Pio Gaud to b' generally adopted, two-thirds of the grain now could be saved. Thai alone would economy of foir million quintals «f cereals, but in ad dition there wculd be produced ; further twenty million quintals ii France. Obviousfy, if it can be showi that the method really gives the re suits claimed, then there will be ; remarkable transformation: Franc* will be able to export wheat insteac of as at present importing larg( quantities of her own needs. It may be interesting, then, to L>ivc the following afceount of the experi ments made by M. Pion Gaud, ir his own language, as it has been givei here:— , .t -.

"I have operated," he said to a porter, "in exhausted soil wher the preceding year's oats could bo grown and where, in the opin of the neighbouring farmers, it \ necessary to begin by distributing waggons of manure over 100 acres "In sowing I employed only t< fifths of the quantity of grain .put similar ground, which was worked the usual fashion. I employed th pounds of sulphate of ammonia i 100 pounds of superphosphates—t is to say, 100 times less sulphate ammonia and ten times less sur phosphates than my neighbours. ] did I use any farm manure. "At a moderate estimate I obtai; 25 per cent, more grain and sti than was obtained from sira grounds heavily manured, but sc with grain not treated as I treat and not worked as I work the grou "First, I remarked that at the ginning of the last century, when pumber of animals on the farms \ only the fiftieth part of the non number of to-day, when chemi manures were unknown, the farn nevertheless, with two cows am primitive instrument of wood, secu a good deal of wheat. He turned soil, however, eight or ten times, concluded that repeated aerat must help to penetrate the soil w the azote of the air and so facilit germination and augment the prod tion.

"Therefore I ploughed the soil from eight to twelve times. I should have liked bo plough it fifteen or eighteen times. The cultivator which I used was nearly two yards wide, that is to say six times wider than an ordinary plough. "I also inspired myself from old empirical methods, which are still sometimes practised, such as the germination of various grains in soot and after several attempts I employed, for the purpose of helping germination, nitrates as in the Italian experiments." (At the present time, at the Sorbonne in Paris, an Italian scientist is experimenting with the soaking of grains in a special solution which impregnates them with certain salts. | The results are claimed- to be extremely satisfactory. Other experiments of the same kind are being made). , "After soaking the grain in a solution of which the composition will presently be made known, I placed the grain for several minutes in a bath of sulphate of copper. Then the grain was placed in heaps until the warmth produced the beginnings of the germination. It was not unti' this moment that it was sown in lines an inch in depth. The machine in sowing the wheat distributed superphosphates directly in contact with the grain. The consequence was that immediately the plant took root and pushed vigorously."

Now that this method has been made known it will undoubtedly be studied by the Minister of Agriculture, Mr. J. H. Ricard, who is especially anxious that there should be undertaken at once scientific researches which will aid France to regain her old position as an agricultural country. He will shortly propose to Parliament the creation of a central bureau of such research, where intensive methods may be examined and afterwards popularlised. There are to be regional laboratories, and the existing agricultural offices which are s~atered over France will make knowr to all farmers the result of these investigations. It would be impossible t<> exaggerate the importance that is attached in France to an agricultural revival.