POULTRY FARMING.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIII, Issue 9129, 25 April 1908, Page 6

POULTRY FARMING.

IS IT WORTH FOSTERING? HOT CRITICISM. A lengthy correspondence has been going on in the Press daring the last few weeks concerning the value or otherwise of the poultry export trade and the Government’s expenditure thereon. Some correspondents have declared that the money spent is absolutely wasted. The Press, commenting on the correspondence, remarks-that it can see nothing either in the work of the Government poultry farms or the necessities of the export trade that warrants the expenditure, and it adds:—“We are quite certain that the money could be spent to far better 'purpose. According to the latest figures, the value of the poultry exported from New Zealand during the last financial year was £562. We have not the figures showing . the cost of the Government depots in the four centres, but for the year ending March, 1907, this came to 1 £2583; and it is probably safe to say - that the cost for the year just closed J was about the same. The expense of maintaining the depots is, on * these figures, out of all proportion to the value of the work they do. BETTER SELL LOCALLY. “Practically there is no export , trade. It stands to reason that ; there can be none as long as the price of poultry to the New Zealand consumer is maintained at the pre- * sent high level, because it pays better to sell in the local market than in London. The depots therefore languish for want of support, and are reduced, it appears, tojpluck and prepare fowls for local poulterers ; in order to preserve a semblance of doing something for the money they cost. It is alleged that this fwork is done at rates that leave no profit. We do not know how far this is the ! case, but we trust that some member of Parliament will make it his business to find out the facts of the matter. In any case, it is not the work for which the depots were established, nor is it any part of the Government’s businessfto do the dirty work of the poulterers. ARE THE POULTRY FARMS USEFUL? “Neither can we agree that the work carried on at the poultry farms justifies the expenditure on them. Last year this amounted to £8135, of which Burnham absorbed £686, and although Burnham is said to be the best managed of the four, the re- s ceipts just about pay for the fowls’ food, leaving the cost of attendance, etc., to be borne by the taxpayers There would be less reason to object to this if the farms fulfilled any really useful purpose. Obviously they have no value as object, lessons, because the use of poultry farming, as in any other kind of farming, is to make money, and these farms are carried on at a loss. This fact alone any lessons they might teach as to the proper methods of , keeping poultry. The bodies which have organised the egg-laying competitions have done much to encourage the wide distribution of good laying strains at very much less cost to the taxpayer than the £6OOO or £7OOO that the ‘poultry department,’ with its farms, its depots, and its experts, costs the country. DO FOWLS PAY? “As a matter of fact, poultry farming as an occupation ‘per se,’ is a very poor way of making money, despite an unfortunately widespread delusion to the contrary, which is encouraged by the fact that the Government has taken poultry farming under its wing; and it, is fostered by those whose motives can hardly be regarded as quite disinterested. Poultry farming does not pay, though, as a ‘side line’ in ordinary farming, poultry keeping, not poultry farming, may be profitable. But is it worth while to pay thousands of pounds a year to enable farmers to buy, from the Government farms, birds which they could procure elsewhere, and to maintain all the paraphernalia for -transacting an export trade when that trade is worth less than £6OO a year?'”