Te Aroha AND Ohinemuri News.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 4363, 21 January 1909, Page 2

Te Aroha AND Ohinemuri News.

Ihi t above all—to thine own self be true , ind it must follow as the night the day Thou canst not then be false to any man Shakespeare.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 21, 1000. SIGNIFICANCE OF AGRICUL TURE.

In an enthralling article recently contributed to “ The American World’s Work” by Edgar Allen Forbes, the assumption is arrived at that both the farm labour and the immigration problems are on the way to solution. After drawing a splendid picture of the prospects of the American farmer of to-day, the writer says : —One of the latest activities of the Government is a practical plan for laying hands upon desirable immigrants just lauded and placing them on the farms where they are needed and where their own prospects are brightest. An office has already been located in New York, and the farmers of the entire country are being instructed in the use of this first-aid to the farmers. Mr Forbes instances the case of a Michigan farmer who applied for a farm hand, but was not at first willing to pay the transportation. However, on being accommodated with a young German, he was so well satisfied, that within a few weeks the farmer’s brother sent for a man like the first, and paid transportation. Then the first farmer applied for another man and his wife, and following this application came another from a neighbour f3r a man.

The present state of things is vividly contrasted with the past. Mr Forbes quotes the Middle-West. There you have the mortgages cleared from over a million farms, within the last few years. Whereas, to quote our authority again : “It is well within the memory of a younger generation that mortgages were plastered over a very large part of the farming land -even of the fine farms- and lawyer were enriching themselves with the foreclosure fees from eastern capitalists, many of whom regarded it as a misfortune that they were compelled to take oyer the farms. ” We are told that the town dwellers are looking with longing eyes toward the happkr, and |more prosperous lot of the farmers who 11 are rapidly becoming the most prosperous class in the nation. " Mr Forbes instances a conversation between two young men, both come to the city from the old unprofitable farms whereon their people had toiled dispiritedly. . Yet both these young men felt the facination of the land upon them One was hesitating about starting a city business, though in a position to do so, because he realised what could now be done on the 4< old place.” The oilier had made up his mind that when he he had made enough money to take up farming and do it on up-to-date methods. He was going back to one of my boyhood homes, to buy one of those worthless farms and show what I can do with it. That’s the way to make money and have a real object in life at the same time,” he said.

The wider outlook of the farmer of to-day, Mr Forbes attributes partly to the farmers’ resolve to profit by the mistakes of their fathers and learn the methods of some of the best European immigrants. He also ascribes great praise to the Secretary of Agriculture, Secretary Wilson, under whom Mr Forbes says' “ The net gain that has come to the farmers from the Department of-r Agriculture through improved methods would pay more than one third of the cost of all other departments of the Government.” It is impossible

to over-estimate the value of thoroughly scientific methods and , trained observation in farming. , Only this week we learn from the Herald of an Australian farmer, who noting a two-headed plant among his wheat crop, carefully saved and ; sowed the grain, with the result 1 that he obtained at the rate of ninety bushels per acre, and also found that the two-headed wheat of last year had multiplied its heads to the number of seven in some instances this year. A few comparisons quoted by Mr Forbes will give an idea of the tremendous importance of her| agriculture to America. He says : I “ if a present movement to induce! the American hens to produce one! dozen eggs more annually should be! carried, the increased value of the! country’s product will be about! ,50,000,000 dollars. The humble! potato produced wealth equal to! that of the gold mines of South! Africa, and exceeding that of the! iron and steel manufacture ©x*l ported from America during the! year. All in all the American! farms and their equipment aril valued at about 28,503,000,000 dollars, to which the money in the United States Treasury is “ but a pebble in comparison."