Rangitikei Advocate. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 12, 1907. SECOND EDITION. EDITORIAL NOTES

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXII, Issue 8947, 12 October 1907, Page 2

Rangitikei Advocate. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 12, 1907. SECOND EDITION. EDITORIAL NOTES

CONSIDERABLE discussion has been aronsed by the wholesale slaughter of calves which is going on in dairying districts. The phenomenon is not a new one, and repeats itself on every occasion when cattle bring low prices for any considerable period. The calves having been killed there is a rnsh on all sides to buy pigs to consume the skim milk, and the price of young pigs consequently rises so high that there is little profit to be made from fattening them, especially when, as at present, pollard and other pig foods are so expensive. The, next stage is an all round rise in young stock and a slump in pigs, and the swing of the pendulum again turns the attention of all to the rearing of calves. Hitherto there appears to bave been no means of regulating the tendency of farmers to follow one another like sheep, all of them rearing calves or all of them killing calves and feeding pigs. The increase in the number of cheese factories may do something to reduce the excess of calves, as the whey returned to suppliers is unsuitable as a food for calves. At the present 1 time, however, the dairy industry seems likely to suffer from the indiscriminate slaughter of heifer calves. Every dairyman should preserve the heifer calves from his best cows, as otherwise there is little possibility of satisfactory culling being carried out. Those who occupy high priced laud seem in many cases to consider that it does not pay to keep heifers until they come into profit, as milking cows can be bought at such comparatively low prices. We note in a contemporary the statement that The best dairy herd in the Forty-Mile Bush, numbering 51 cows, whose butterfat returns averaged £l3 each for the season, was sold the other day at £7 10s per head. It takes three years before a calf becomes reproductive, and in that time she costs her owner £5 10s for her |keep. If the farmer can buy dairy cows for from £3 to £5 per head, it is not likely that he will go to the trouble of rearing them. ’ ’ This is tno sort of argument which leads to the existence of those nondescript herds which yield far less butter-fat than should be the case. The dearer the land used for dairying the greater is the importance of a good herd, and to secure this the farmer must rear his own best calves. As to 1 the general question of killing calves, we must hope that as the conditions of the dairying industry become more settled there will be fewer ups and downs in the price "of young stock, and that the relative proportions of calves and pigs which it pays to rear will be more clearly established.

FATAL®motor accidents seem, comparatively speaking, of such common occurrence that most people would suppose that they were responsible for hundreds of deaths per annum. A careful calculation made by the London Daily Mail shows that between January Ist and 'August 32nd of this year motor cars were reported in the newspapers to have caused the deaths of only 43 persons in Great Britain, and to have injured 90. No doubt the list is not complete, as some accidents do not find thoir way to the press. If we compare these figures with the number of deaths caused in two years by traction engines and road rollers, which do not travel at more than four miles au hour, we must como to the conclusion that It is not always the speed of motor cars which leads to fatal accidents. ’Traction engines and road rollers killed 24 persona in 1905 and 38 persons in 1906, although they are far less numerous than motor cars. The conclusion to be arrived at from these figures is that motor cars are not nearly so dangerous on the highways as many people suppose, but at the same time the prevailing opinion is so strong that motor car drivers should do their utmost by careful driving and regard for the rights of other users of the roads to counteract as far as possible the perhaps rather unreasonable prejudice against motor cars.

THEBE is a theory which obtain some support from experience that the weather in this country follows that experienced in England. Thus, ; for example, a hot and dry summer in Britain is often followed by a ' similar season in New Zealand. This was the case last year when a fine summer in England was the forerunner of a good summer in the Dominion, and the wet spring in England has certainly been followed by a similar experience hero. Should the theory hold, wo are in for a very bad summer this year, as the English season has been remarkable for an almost total absence of sunshine and nearly perpetual rain. We must admit that from a'seieutifle point of view there seems absolutely no ground for the hypothesis to which we have referred, and the facts on which it is founded, appear to be simply of the nature of coincidences. There is [no reason why the seasons in New Zealand should follow those in Britain while Australia admittedly presents no such sequence. Again, it is quite impossible to speak of the climate.of New Zealand as if the country everywhere enjoyed similar seasons. Extending as it does for a thousand miles from north to south, the Dominion provides samples of nearly every kind of climate, and by choosing the locality wo can find conditions which will agree with almost any theory.