BIGGER YIELDS FROM FARMING INDUSTRY

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 55, 27 May 1927, Page 3

BIGGER YIELDS FROM FARMING INDUSTRY

“SIDE-LINES” URGED BY MR. HAWKEN (From Our Resident Reporter.) WELLINGTON, Thursday. In the extensive development of side lines in primary production tile Minister of Agriculture, the Hon. O. J. Hawken, sees the salvation of New Zealand farming problems. “More side lines” was the phrase which he emphasised as a slogan when speaking before the Royal Agricultural Society to-night. “If we are not going to be a manufacturing country,” he said, “and I believe that a great many farmers do not believe in the encouragement of the secondary industries, we have to bend our energies in the direction of producing everything possible on the farm. We are not a big country, and we have not a great deal of land of any quality left to break in. “Farming can be greatly improved, and instead of stretching out for new lands we will have to come back to the land we have and make better use of it.

“A great deal more attention will have to be paid to this so that farms will produce sufficient to keep the country going. I do not say that secondary industries are not to be encouraged, but it looks as if New Zealand will have to depend on primary industries for some time to come. If this is so we must use every effort to get all we can from the farm.” Mr. Hawken touched upon general farming matters and expressed a desire to encourage poultry, pigs, honey and other products. The beef trade, he said, was not at all bright, and the decrease in cattle throughout New Zealand, particularly in the North Island, was a subject for grave concern. The fa.ct of the drop in the number of cattle was responsible for the deterioration of a great deal of land which was slipping back to a neglected state. If cattle were paying, the land would he kept much better.