RURAL NEW ZEALAND.

Taranaki Daily News, 22 January 1919, Page 6

RURAL NEW ZEALAND.

AS SEEN BY THE FRENCH MISSION Tilers. Corbriere. the member of the Flench Commission who is most interested in agriculture and stoek, paid a visit to the Manawatu district last ■week. It should be mentioned tlmt this gentleman lias a large estate in Normandy on which, in addition to carrying on farming 011 an extensive scale, he also keeps a string of racehorses, being an enthusiastic patron of the turf. This being the case, he is thoroughly quali-

fied speak in an authoritative manner 011 matters connected with the agricultural and pastoral industries, as well as blood stock In the course of an interview with the Standard, M. Corbriere went into raptures over the pastoral possibilities of the Palmerston ajid Feildiug districts. With more than a suggestion of sentiment, he compared the district to that of his own country, which, he said, is 1 I very closely resembled. "In New Zea--1 land," he remarked, "you can grow any--1 thing that we raise in France and EngI laud. You have the same crops. You i have good summers, and your winters I are shorter than ours. Your short wmI ters are an advantage over us, but in , another sense they may represent a drawback. Throughout our long -winter wo stable all our cattle. This accumu- ' lates through the winter a lot of stable mannre, with which we fertilise our land. This has proved of great benefit to 113 So you see that a fine climate is a good thing, as in the case of your country, for a pastoral country, but on . arable' land the 3mm who goes in for , stable manure can do with it long win- 1 After referring l in congratulatory-; ■terms to the crops he had seen in Can-1 terbury, M. Corbriere said that he was very much struck with the cattle and sheep he had seen in the Palmerston North district. Anything bred in France . and England could be bred here of equal ' quality. This was the case also in Conj terbury, and in this connection he mentioned' Sir George Clifford's Stoneyhurst i stud and the stock he had seen on the j ij homestead of Mr J. B. Reid, of Elderslie, I and Mr J Grigg's fine farm at Longbeach. ! Speaking as a farmer, M. Corbriere said that lie saw much which interested him in the Manawatu district. The quality of the stock, especially the sheep, was a great source of admiration to him. He only regret was that he could spend not one, bilt several days, "a whole week," lie fervently exclaimed, "in this ideal district." It was when he j : spoke of the stud flocks that he saw dur* j i ing his hurried tour of the district thai' ■'■ the distinguished envoy was most vol- ' ! uUe in his praise. "I saw," he remark-j-ed, "Mr Short's Romney Marsh sheep ' and his Hereford cattle. In the Master- ' ton district I saw Mr Perry's fine flocks, and also the excellent Southdown sheep on Mr Knight's property in Feilding. , All all of these were fine. They were magnificent-superb." The Southdowns ! bred in the district also appear to have caught the visitor's eye, for he spoke glowingly of their fine quality. I Generalising, M. Corbriere confessed that he had heard much of New Zealand before ever coming here, but he did not , think it was such a fine country from a .{ pnstoralist's point of view. In England

populations, the land was of course much closer cultivated. For a far-flung outpost of the Empire, New Zealand was indeed a surprising country New Zealand possessed a great many advantages over France and England, l>ut of course in some fe>v tilings these older countries were better off. It wa3 the luxuriant growth of grass in New Zealand which particularly commended itself to the visitor. He himself came from Normandy. which he had always thought of as the best grass country in the world until ho saw the pastures of this district. "In Manawatu," ho exclaimed, "there is as good grass there asi in my own province." •

j Touching on another matter M. Corbriere recalled that the French troops regarded New Zealand mutton as too fat, and in the Balkans his men were j wont to exchange the fat rendered from our frozen mutton, to the peasants for chickens and other food. Beef or pork better suited the French palates. Before the war France used to export large quantities of beef to Germany. /.Che freezing industry waa then unknown there, but during the war the necessity of storing huge quantities of food led to the erection of a chain of large cool stores centrally situated. These, the speaker thought, would is future be largely used for the storage of imported foodstuffs, in order to meet the requirements of the ciyilian population. !