FARMERS’ FREEZING WORKS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVII, Issue 10, 12 May 1915, Page 3

FARMERS’ FREEZING WORKS.

[iu the Editor Stratford Post.]

Sir, —The interest created by the movement lor the establishment of a farmers’ Freezing Works in Northern Taranaki directs settlers’ attention to the meat question generally, to the shortage in world’s supplies, ami to the extraordinary efforts made to expedite transport under tthe handicap of inadequate insulated shipping space due largely to war conditions. Five years back meat everywhere was in. , quest of markets, to-day the position is reversed, and the markets are looking for the meat. The owners of the great lines of insulated steamers are keenly alive to the prospective resultant expansion in production arising under the stimulus of unsatisfied demand, and it is noteworthy that at the present time, notwithstanding the war. twenty-one steamers are being built for tin* New Zealand-! nited Kingdom frozen meat trade, providing refrigerated space for 2.1 million GOlh mutton carcases. The list is as follows : Aberdeenshire, capacity IdO,000 carcases, Almanxora (50.000, Cornwall. Devon. Cumberland, Northumberland and Westmoreland .100,000 each, M aha na 120.00!). Furness-Ibuilder line. 5 steamers. 100,000 each. Lamport and Molt line five steamers each 12!.700. Orient Line, one steamer To,ooo. and Hie Shaw Seville and Albion Company. two ■steamers, capacity 120,000 carcases each. When these boats are completed, the carrying capacity- of the licet trading with New Zealand will he increased by fifty per cent., ami the problem as to refrigerated space will be solved satisfactorily toi the producer. On the Continent of Europe the wai has wrought changes in the meat position. .Belgian flocks and herd; have been confiscated for German use. France in her eastern theatre of wai in six months lost 1,750,000 cattle Twelve months ago the French Aea demy of Sciences, a body representative of all interests including agrarianism, and so influential that its recommendations are invariably given effect to by Parliament, carried a re solution that refrigeration should on!\ be used in France to help export am not import industries. Under tin stress of war, the military authorities are now in control, and have introdu ecu 150,000 tons of frozen meat. Tin; huge total represents twice the tota l output of beef from Australia in a normal year, and the Academy of Sciences cancelling its previous decision, resolved :—-(!) “To give a place to frozen meat in considering national meal supplies for the civil and mili tary population.” (2> “To create without waiting until the end of tin war, in the large centres of consump Lion, refrigerating depots of a sufficient capacity to hold such frozen meal supplies on the lines of the large store* in Great Britain.' These and numerous similar facts put the question very plainly to New Zealand “Can you increase your output-'” The New Zealand Year Book statistics place the number of sheep in New Zealand at roundly 24,500,000. For our own use and for freezing purposes we slaughtei roughly 8,000,000 sheep annually. r i lu Year Book figures are compiled as at TOtli April, wiiim six months of tin busiest part of the killing season artcompleted. To say that 6,000.00! sheep are killed during those month; is a guarded estimate, and consequently if we have 21! million sheep on the doth April, we must have had dO.J millions on the previous dlst October, before killing commenced, and when lamb docking and tailing was completed. This analysis of Year Look figures approaches very closely to accuracy. Now assuming that of our maximum number, Id millions arc breeding ewes, and given an 80 pei cent, lambing over both islands, wo can kill more sheep than now, allow a million for deaths from natural causes, and provide for flock increase from year to year untif area limitations begin to operate. The optimism everywhere in regard to supplies in face of the numerous new freezing works projects is due to careful examination of the whole position. The incentive to effort in every hr inch of primary production is greater now than it lias ever been in our hidcy. and in connection with provincial development the Farmers’ Fre'v ng Works lias become an imli-.p 'O'-a he necessity. A spirited effort is all that is needed to reach ■ achievement. Should we let the opnortuuitv slip, we shall richly deserve a continuance of the conditions existing during the past two years. 1 am, etc. ,SKITTER. Whangamomona, 10th May, 1015.