On the Land

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 696, 22 June 1929, Page 29

On the Land

Settling Taupo Lands TREE PLANTING & FARMING Experience Elsewhere IN rnauy countries the value of tree-planting as an essential adjunct to profitable farming has been proved. It has been shown that the best results cannot be obtained from the soil where shelter is lacking. Accepting this, it seems quite reasonable to suggest that those who advocate a dual programme of tree-planting and farming as a paeans of bringing the Taupo country into profitable occupation have much to support their case.

"One of the biggest problems those who attempt to farm the Taupo country have to face,” said one of the leading stockmen of the Waikato to the writer the other day,” is the intense cold of winter. For four or five months of the year there is practically no growth, and bleak, cold winds sweeping across the plains are everything but conducive to the welfare of stock. Irrespective of how they may manure, it seems that they will never do anything with that country until Government or private enterprise carries out an extensive programme of tree planting.” Others have brought up the same argument, and been regarded much in the light of impractical theorists. They have suggested that the Government should make inquiries as to the practicability of starting a dual scheme of farm establishment, and tree planting: a scheme which would allow the settler to work on his holding during the summer and on the Government plantations during the winter.

It is held that by doing this, apart from establishing profitable plantations for which a ready market will be found in the near future, satisfactory occupation of the Taupo lands would be less of a dream in the minds of the visionaries; it would, in fact, be something real and lasting. Results achieved under similar conditions in other parts of the world lead to the belief that a new “Waikato” would be added to the rieh revenueproducing districts of New Zealand. At one time in her history a big part of Denmark was made up of sand dunes and practically worthless country. The Government inaugurated an extensive programme of tree planting in conjunction with a scheme of farm settlement, and the world knows the result today. Canadian farmers, reaping rich harvests with little trouble from the prairies, worried little about trees in the early days. Today, however, they have a different outlook, and everywhere there is a decided trend toward an extensive tree-planting programme.

Two facts have yet to be successfully challenged in regard to the Taupo country. The first is that parts of it cannot be profitably farmed;

numerous cases could be quoted of men on the fringe who are achieving most satisfactory and convincing results by their own unaided efforts. The second is that the day is not far distant when Taupo timber will have a profitable market value; it cannot be denied that the country will carry timber trees. The day is not far away when both the Government and private commercial afforestation companies with plantations in the Taupo will require to find a market. Nor will they have much difficulty. Since 1900 the production of paper* in U.S.A. has increased by over 400 per cent. Today the paper manufacturers of the States are big importers of pulp and timber, and it is there that New Zealand millers and pulp manufacturers will find their best market. Already the afforestation concerns are investigating the possibilities of pulp-making for profitable export. It seems, therefore, that those who advocate an investigation into the possibility of setting in motion some progressive scheme for the profitable occupation of the Taupo lauds have much to support their case. It does not appear sound that land which, under private management is giving highly profitable results, should be allowed to remain idle.

RABBIT EXTERMINATION Investigations have recently been made by the Development and Migration Commission into methods of rabbit extermination in Australia. The inquiry, necessitated by the growing seriousness of the rabbit pest, was made at the request of the Development and Migration Committee of the West Australian Government. The commission in its investigations has been greatly impressed by the use of carbon monoxide for rabbit destruction. This method, as is the case with all fumigation processes, applies only in districts where rabbits burrow and warrens. The extermination of rabbits from any area is dependent upon the clearing away of covers such as old timber and stone walls and the regular attention to rabbits which get into fenced areas. In country in which rabbits make only short burrows or do not live underground in consider-

able numbers, methods of fumigation cannot take effect.

There is more than one type of apparatus, based on the same general principle, available for the purpose. The use of the apparatus is simple. The producer is fed with. small blocks of wood or coke, and the only precaution necessary is reasonable care on the part of the operator in keeping to windward to avoid receiving a heavy dose of poisonous gas. Encouraging results from the use of the carbon monoxide process are reported from certain districts in Gippsland, where many landholders have ceased to regard rabbit extermination a problem as in the past. Evidence is available that if the method is applied periodically as rabbits begin to show up, there is no difficulty in keeping them under control. The benefit of keeping rabbits in check is illustrated by figures relating to two 450-acre paddocks in a district in Gippsland. These paddocks were infested with rabbits despite all efforts to eradicate them. The sheep were in poor condition, and six died, although the season was a good one. The sheep came off the shears in light store condition. The paddocks were then fumigated with carbon monoxide gas, the process taking 30 days to complete and requiring the services of two men and a boy. The following year the same number of sheep of the same breeding, age and quality were put in the paddocks. The season was a bad one, with little rain after May, but 31b more of better wool was cut from each sheep and the sheep were fat. MORTALITY AMONG LAMBS MASTERTON, Thursday. “In this land of huge refrigerating works, it is generally taken for granted that the normal end of a sheep is the butcher’s shop and the freezing works. It is surprising to find that, out of 26 million sheep in the Dominion, at least 2,000,000 die annually. So far the ablest of our scientists have failed to find a complete remedy for the fatal internal parasitic infestation of sheep.”

In these words Mr. T,. T. Daniell, a member of the Wellington Land Board, prefaced his address at the Rotary Club in Masterton today, on the mortality among hoggets. He stated that during the last two or three months, the death rate from parasitic infestation in the Dominion had been at least 50,000 a week. Methods of collecting pastoral statistics were confused and haphazard, and it was not easy to compute the national stock sheet without a margin of error, but by taking a 10-year period, he found that about 21,000,000 sheep were unaccounted for, an average of over 2,000,000 a year, of which at least 1,000,000 were hoggets. This regrettable drain on the economic life blood occurred year after year, and it was high fjxne that the best brains in the Dominion were organised to assist farmers in what was at present a losing fight. Mr. Daniell suggested that the Board should be constituted to investigate the trouble, consisting, say of a veterinarian, a dietiest, an agristologist and a soil analyst.