FARM AND DAIRY.

Taranaki Daily News, 20 November 1917, Page 8

FARM AND DAIRY.

THE COASTAL LAND. GREAT POSSIBILITIES. Speaking at the conclusion of the Wanganui Agricultural Association's show t> Mr. T. W. Lonsdale, manager of the jJloumahaki State Farm, said that he considered; the magnificent belt of coastal land from Palmerston North to New Plymouth had the greatest possibilities of any part of the North Island. The climatic conditions were both favors able and suitable, and from the point of view of productiveness, as the outcome of intense cultivation, the land had as yet scarcely been touched. "I look forward to the day," continued Mr. Lonsdale, "when our fine coastal belt will be a panorama of smiling homesteads—farms of from 50-to 100 acres at the most. The farming population will then be such as will produce, not only sufficient for themselves, but enough for the requirements of an export trade that out port authorities at the present time have no conception of. This may be ten years hence, as far as our better quality lands are concerned. lam optimistic enough to believe that with judicious cultivation and scientific production these small fifty-acre farms will be capable of giving a net return of £ COO per annum. This estimate might appear fictitious, but the small farmer of the future, who puts in good crops and has a careful eye on the breeding of good stock, will be able to get the return I have indicated. Perhaps this is even an under-estimatc of the future, when scieentific farming yHll play such /t pa&"