FARM AND DAIRY.

Taranaki Daily News, 9 May 1921, Page 8

FARM AND DAIRY.

FARMING NOTES.

(By

“Agricola.”)

Potatoes are quoted in Christchurch at from £3 5s to £3 10s per ton wholesale. Chaff is being sold in Canterbury this week by farmers at £2 15s to £3 per ton. Buyers are offering 2s 3d to 2s 4d per bushel for Garton oats at Canterbury country sations. North Island beef growers have received something in the naure of a shock in the past few days. They have been told that anything but first quality ox beef will not be worth shipping to London at all. The Auckland Farmers’ Freezing Company, which handles large quantities of beef on account of farmers, have notified their clients that as their London agent advises that anything but the very best of beef is not likely to realise prices that will pay for freezing, shipping and other charges, and on this account no advances are being made against beef of the kind. There is obviously more in wheatgrowing than hard work and ill-requit-ed industry. One farmer in the North Otago district has received a cheque this season for £6OOO for his wheat, and he wears a broad smile on his face as an illuminating concession to the worries he has undergone from the time he put the seed in the ground to the time he had the crop safely in a multitude of sacks (says the Oamaru Mail). Another grower discarded sheep and lambs .and put every available acre of his land into wheat, u4th a small area of barley thrown in as a left-bower. As a result of what he threshed he expects to pocket something in the neighborhood of £6700. Of course, out of these sums must come the expenses incurred in putting the crop in and taking it off, but even if they come to half the amounts mentioned in both instances the residue might almost be expected to reach the capital value of the land on which the crops were grown. “Within a radius of five miles of Matamata, there are no fewer than 15,000 cows. They prove a veritable goldmine to he district,” observed a Matamata farmer to a representative of the Waikato Times. In the course of an address at Mas“terton, Mr. A. H. Cockayne, Chief of the Fields Division of the Department of Agriculture, stated that the Department would be prepared to carry a certain quantity of Nauru rock phosphate and other manures to the Wairarapa free by rail for experimental purposes. The Department would also supply a quantity of seed, and would do its best to assist the movement.

The farmers of the Wairarapa *find their men are amenable to reason. On one station in the Martinborough district the shepherds have consented to a reduction of £1 per week in their wages—from £2 10s to £1 10s. Ploughmen have agreed to their wages being reduced from £3 to £2 10s per week, and anticipate a further cut in the future. Other laborers accept reduced wages without demur to retain their positions.