OUR STAPLE INDUSTRIES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 227, 19 January 1911, Page 2

OUR STAPLE INDUSTRIES.

RURAL NEW ZEALAND UNDER I REVIEW. I No. 13. ' [All Rights Reserved.] (By R. J. EAMES).

AUCKLAND: A PROVINCE OF PROMISE. LAND TRANSACTIONS AND FINANCE It was shown in an article on South Taranaki that in the "province prolific" an important factor in the rapid advance of the price of land was the development of a system of finance which enables men of very small means to take up high-priced holdings. Thus a man can buy, by paying down only a few pounds per acre, say a hundred acre j farm at £4O or £SO per acre. In the Auckland district, speaking generally, the conditions are different. When farmers there sell out, although the price of land is so much lower, they want a bigger proportion of cash. "Half cash" is usually expected. This variation in finance speaks eloquently of the difference between the qualities of the land in the two provinces. 'ln the case of Taranaki farms the seller has practically no worry about the financial completion of the deal so far as the land itself is concerned. If the purchaser fail, and the property is thrown back into the'hands of the vendor, there can have been little or no damage done except to the fences, the sheds and the dwelling-house. But in most parts of the Auckland province, if land •were sold under Taranaki conditions, the vendor, in the event of the buyer's failure, might easily find himself a heavy loser. A buyer, foreseeing his inability to complete his engagements, might determine to save his own skin as much as possible by taking everything possible out of the land and putting nothing back, and in that way the whole heart might be knocked out of a farm in a very little time. It is to guard against anything of the kind that vendors demand that the purchasers will have as much at stake in the property as will compel them to farm properly. The necessities of the soil largely check speculative buying, for the simple reason that farms cannot be let with, the same confidence that they can in districts where topdressing is not essential and the pastures have not yet had to be re-sown. Perhaps that is a good thing, and the results testify to the prosperity which attends bona fide farming throughout the various important stretches of country embraced in the Auckland land district, PIG-BREEDING.

The Auckland province hag the distinction of owning more pigs than any other province in New Zealand. But numbers are a ddubtful honor; in quality the great northern district has still a long way to travel. Altogether there are something like 245,000 pig 9 in the Dominion, of 'which Auckland has, say, 72,000 odd, 'her next biggest competitor being the little province of Taranaki, with 51,000. A great pig area finds its centre in Auckland city, porkers and baconers coming from as far north as the Bay of Islands, from the south-east to Opot!iki, and from the south into Tara-naki itself. The conditions of pig-raising make themselves very manifest in the quality. To the north of Auckland, for instance, the quality is so inferior that the price given is as much as a, halfpenny per lb less' than the figure commanded by those districts which grow the pig on more scientific linos. Along the coast of the Bay of Islands, from Athrenee to Opotiki, and as far inland as settlement extends, definite action is needed to improve the quality. No doubt the pigs were all right originally, but bad farming has led to a lot of in-breeding, with the result that the strains have badly deteriorated. A cliange of blood and improved methods are urgently wanted. The same remarks, with but few exceptions, apply to the stock up north. One visible result of this haphazard breeding is the great variation in the sizes and quality of the lines of pigs put on the market. Of course, the chief cause of the slack methods employed is the mental attitude of the farmer towards this branch of the industry. In America the hog is bred and fed for profit; in Auckland district it is kept as a useful kind of scavenger which is allowed to roam over large paddocks in sparch of food to supplement such supplies of skim-milk as may be available. Pig-raising on those lines' has serious drawbacks. In the first place, it takes about twice as much food to fatten a roaming pig as it does one which is stied. Secondly, this roaming makes muscle when what is needed is flesh. Thirdly, the clover and grasses they eat give the meat a fishy fiavor. By enquiry I found that the most suitable pig for Auckland's curing purposes is an animal weighing (dead weight) about l.Wlbs at six months old. If they cannot turn loOlbs at 'that age they are not as profitable as they ought to'be either to the farmer or tlie curcr. For general utility purposes it has been found that the Berkshire takes a lot of beating, whilst a lot of good first crosses between the Berkshire and Tamworth, and the Berkshire and Yorkshire have, been produced. But anything beyond first crosses are a comparative failure. As a general rule, the greatest attention is paid to pigs where settlement is closest. Thus at Pukekolic and Waiuku there is an improved quality. Between Pukeno Valley and Franklin there are very few pigs, but in the Hamilton-Cambridge district, and away northwardly along the Thames Valley, the pig is produced in better quality. Uniformity of size and quality is a pressing demand and those farmers who realise that .the pig is a valuable product, and not a scratch by-product of the farm, find that it pays well to grow good stuff. They are ahvays courted by

the buyers and command bigger prices. So far New Zealand lias not begun to seriously consider the ([uestion of growing pigs for export, but that will come.

Practical men, whose advice and opinion the writer sought, declare that the extent of the pig industry 2o years hence is as unrealised now as was to-day's dairy industry 25 yenrs ago. Last 'year the Auckland Farmers' Freezing Co. shipped 1044 pigs. But the local consumption is very much greater than that and is now suflk'iently large to warrant much closer attention to this branch of rural activity.

dust now there are cured annually in Auckland 10,000 pigs, and it is estimated thai about 2000 come into the city from outside. These 12,000 baconers represent something like £2,7,000 to the farmer. Besides these, it is estimated that over SOOO porkers are killed, which would account for another £13,000, or a total to the fanner of £40,000 per year. That is what the pig is doing under the loose conditions of today. There must be a splendid future for the industry when the hog is scientifically bred, scieiitifieallv fed, .properly cured "and properly marketed.