ADVANCING AGRICULTURE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 254, 6 April 1915, Page 6

ADVANCING AGRICULTURE.

INCI'JASI N' G PRODUCTION.

DOUBLING EXPORTS.

DUTY AND PROFIT. The extraordinary high prices ruling for all classes of New Zealand products should make our farmers consider whether they are acting wisely in keeping so much of their land under grass and depending so entirely upon pasture as feed for live stock (says the Auckland Herald). Of course, at the present time the value of foodstuffs has been forced up by the demands of war, but even before war w:-.s thought of our bufii r. cheese, beef, mutton, lamb, pork, and every variety of farm produce was at a very profitable standard and there was an ever-increasing demand for our commodities in tl|e markets of the world. The United States, Canada, and several Continental countries were eager to take many of the foodstuffs which we rnised, and our old markets in Great Brit-. [ ain were continually increasing. Whatever may be the condition of .affairs when the war is over, there is now no doubt whatever that peoole must be fed. If there is a general shortage of money, amusements, luxuries, dross, and such like things may be curtailed, but there is not likely to he rnucli curtailment of food, and there is not likely to be any increase in supplies among the old world countries or even in the North American, communities. This being the case, there is every inducement for New Zealand farmers to concentrate their energies 011 doubling tile output from their farms. No one reed ask if fins can be done, for ihe answer is manifest. We could double, and more than double, our pro-cut output of pastoral and agrieultural produce without adding a single acre, to those already in occupation, and we could, as a matter of fact, double our present output without increasing the area at present under some, form of production. We could double the output of dairy produce by improving our pastures, growing extra feed for summer and winter use. and by breeding better cows. It should not require a farm of three or four hundred acres to carry a herd of GO to 70 cows; half this area, moderately cultivated, would do. It should not require a herd of thirteen cows to produce a ton of butter in a year, for half that number of well-bred, well-fed animals could produce this amount. It is much the same with beef, mutton and lamb. At the present time our occupied lands are not averaging | one sheep to the acre. Is it unreasonable to expect that their carrying capacity could be lifted to an average of two sheep to the acre? It has been proved beyond dispute that by {lie aid of suitable top-dressings the pasture on some of the ordinarily poor lands of Ruakura can be made to carry eight sheep to the acre, and there are tens of thousands of acres in the country which by the same methods could be made to give the same results. But it is with the higher forms of agriculture—the raising of root crops and fodder crops—that the greatest increases could be woo in th" production of cattle and sheep for the export trade. If every farmer in New Zealand put one-third of his land under crops, its stock-carrying capacity so\ild be more than doubled, and undoubtedly the meat production would be increased at a still greater rate, because where proper fattening foods are used a mush greater percentage of the animals could be turned into what are technically known as fats.

It is not only in the direction of increasing the production of land already productive that the greatest advan could be made, for there is a tremendous amount of land in the aggregate on our farms which is not in use at all —land' in scrub or fern, swamps undrained. In the newer districts of the ■North Island particularly it is doubtful whether more than half the land occupied is productive at all. Much of this land is of good quality and only lacks that useful thing we call capital, alway( so scarce among farmers, always so difficult to obtain in new countries. Whatever be the reason why, we know very well that farmers in most of our districts do hold quantities of land which they cannot use. In some cases men hold more than they can work, in the hope that their children will use it. In some cases they hold it in the hope that thej may sell it at a profit at some later time. Whether in our case holding land out of use is any benefit to the individual is somewhat of a problem, for the (interest 011 its capital value must make a heavy charge on it. There is, however, no problem about the matter from the State point of view, for every acre ■oirtof use is so much loss to the nation. New Zealand exports annually something over £20,000,000 worth of farm products: to double this amount would be a great benefit to all classes of people in the community, but no one would benefit more than the farmers themselves. In many cases the farmers are stiiving unceasingly in this direction, but it doubtful whether the community or the State, is helping them as it should or even realising how it can help them. Phe financial institutions of the country can do a great deal toward increasing the output of our farms by advancing capital for reasonable improvements by giving credit where time is required to win results. The State can help cnormously by giving farmers a greater use of money by building railways, making loads, and teaching still more vigorously the lessons of scientific agriculture. After all, however, the real increase in farm production must come from the farmer himself. He must realise the necessity for better stock, be stern enough to throw out unprofitable animals, wise enough to see that profit is to be'made by providing abundance of food. Ho must educate that racial inclination he has to hold more land than he enn use and be prepared to sell his surplus lands in older that he may have enou ,r h capital to properly work that which he retains. He must put aside old methods where they are not good and take up new methods. Our farmers, averagely, are practical, energetic and intelligent' but some of them dislike change and hustle. They are apt to think that as soon as they are able to make their own farm keep them that no further advance jkhvl Ih> made, apt to give up dairying for sheep because it means easier work, apt to keep land in grass because cropping requires labor and capital; but if they have a real sense of duty to themselves and to the State, of which thev are a part, they will see that in striving to improve their land thev are rising above mere selfishness and performing a great national work