Enormous Cost of Imported Diseases

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 56, 28 May 1927, Page 20 (Supplement)

Enormous Cost of Imported Diseases

EXPERIENCE IN DENMARK NEED FOR PRECAUTION (From Our Oxen Correspondent .) WELLINGTON, Friday. The need of stringent precautions against the importation of farther diseases into the Dominion was stress*! by the Minister of Agriculture, th* Hon. O. J. Hawken. who declared a: the meeting of the Royal Agricultural Show Society that New Zealand wr> not justified in bringing in any stocK into the country which carried the least element of risk. The country did not want to have t 3 face a position such as Denmark was called upon to cope with, the foot and mouth disease having cost that ccuntry close on £ 10,000,000 the year before last. In fruit, too, he continued, the great est care had to be exercised to prevent the introduction and spread of disease In fact, he believed the time was fas' approaching when fruit from other countries should not be allowed ib here. The introduction of fire blight wanow costing this country a great of money, and he was not exaggerating if he asserted the cost of the varioij> diseases at £1,000,000. -SomepeoP' say here :hat if we knew the difficulties facing the tillers of the soil in other countries, more care would be cised in the importations,’* sa.d Hawken, and he predicted that tr.present fruit season would prove tb best yet experienced for growers. T. Government guarantee had been newed to cover shipments of apple* pqp.rs made during the 1927 season, but, ih view of the satis’.&ctory returns being realised, it anticipated that there would be call on the guarantee this year. - believed in the policy of a guaarn for small industries which found ov head expenses in the early days oi ' enterprise exceptionally ’ ’ was not the intention of the GOT ment to continue the guarantee for but assistance in the *»arly stage* of material help. The fruit industry was on a rL-. better footing than most ined. Perhaps this was P ar * the fact that the fruit-growers been unable to borrow money might not be the only .reason, bm> tainly, fruit-growers possessed complaints than other* am not going to point a mara :’ r Mr. Hawken, “thou S !i I » elieTe could.” (Laughter.)

HIGH-GRADE HERDS

TE AWAMUTU RESULTS VALUE OF TESTING As showing the excellent some of the herds adjacent to Te mutu, the following are some heroing results: — Mr. J. J. Walker’s, Waipa ilb : herd of 76 cows, averaged 33 ■ , f » ■ butter-fat for 254 days’ nulMPfe the units of this herd 12 * e —g*-. year-old heifers. These latter * j. 256.91 b of fat during period of 265 days. Mr. R- R*c herd of 85 grade Jerseys on tn * bc «. |r gia Road farm, tested 343.151 b 9? ter-fat for their milking seaso days. A two-year-old I herd produced 387.8311* of but 235 days. _ 77er btf* There are several otier s*®** in the district that l‘ ave d t ° is than the above returns, but nu®*®* » usual for large herds as tno ** r*' | to produce such splendid a suits. ■