FARMERS' COLUMN.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 145, 22 February 1915, Page 7

FARMERS' COLUMN.

MORE BRAINS INTO FARMING. The best- of farmers realise very keenly the supreme importance of wist: ami efficient farm management. It means so much to the final outcome. The man who is a student of his farm very soon gains the conviction that the. subject is bigger than he is: that ho needs all the help, both physical ami mental, that he can employ to make things come out right. And then, with the best of forecast, ho is subject to the hazard of the weather which often sets him bach and thwarts him in his wisest and best endeavours. As o::e farmer once remarked who had once been a railroad engineer and a good one. too: "I used to think that railroading could beat any vocation in compelling a man to keep his wits on their feet all the time; but farming, if you do it right, can beat the railroad twice over."

Some men get discouraged in trying to do as well as they know. There are so many liindranc.es in the way. But there is this to be said of the farm: It is a place for the best trained brain, the wisest foresight and the largest use of what science has to give if we but know it, and there is no place that calls for better business management .than the farm. Farmers as a rule do not appreciate the possibilities of their own farms. Farming has not been considered a learned profession. From father to sou for many generations it has not been thought, necessary to be well educated in fanning. is for that reason that you see so few younp men developing their minds and making an intellectual study of this pursuit.

But conditions are changing. The expense of living is increasing, the soil is growing less and less producitve in the hands of nine out of ten farmers. The allurements of town life and the hope of winning a. big fortune is taking away the best intellectual product of the farm. The mistaken notion that a man can never win distinction in society by being a farmer misleads a host of young men who are raised on the farm. And then there is the strange unreasonable idea that thousands of farmers have that there is no need of giving their sons special education for farming. They will be willing to spend of their hard earnings to send a boy through college to make, verv likely, only a third-rate lawyer or doctor of him. Such farmers lack a trueappreciation of the possibilities of first-class farming to start with. Bot?j they and their boys see only the work side of farming. They do not see that thereis a still more strenuous work side to every other pursuit if a ma?. wins it best rewards.

Outside of farming the Lord does but .mighty little to help any man along in his vocation. On the farm he does so much as to deaden the desire for knowledge, enterprise, brain power, individual pride, and love of conquest. But the light of a truer conception of what real farming means to the farmer himself, to his mind as well as his hands, is dawning on the world. If special education and training is worth anything anywhere it is worth it on the farm. Because so many farmers do not see this great truth, farming is what it is, soil impoverishment is what it is, and the state of individual mentality on tlie farm and the low profit of farming is what it is.—Hoard's Dairvman.

Messrs Amour and Co.,Ch : cago, who bave brought the science cf cattle buying to a fine point, miblv.'i in Armco, their house magazine, their buyers' methods for judging the weight of cattle: "To the experienced buyer there are quite a number of ways to make certain of the beef yielding qualities of any bullock or steer. "These points stand out boldly before the eyes of a man who is con- j stantJy in the game for many years,. { and who trains himself to look for and I see them. Among the first points an [ expert buyer locks for are a real fat I waddle under an animal's jaw and | width across the shoulder. The shoiuM dors should be thick and square clear up to the neck, so that there will be a good yield of beef all the way along. If a bullock is broad along the back but sharp at the neck there is want of beef there. "Another way to judge a bullcok is from a point several feet striaght behind him. Notice the conformation of I his hips and back. If he has been thoroughly fed his 'pants 'will be tight and he will be straight and flat across the buttock. If not, he will be divided and have the appearance of being split' all the way up, which indicates a lack of meat between the legs or in the rounds. "Again, get him into actiein, and when he stops notice whether he pushes a good flank. If he does, this indicates that a good yield of beef can be expected from him."