DOMINION FARMLANDS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 April 1938, Page 3

DOMINION FARMLANDS

SOUTH AFRICAN VISITOR IMPRESSED PASTURES IN GOOD FETTLE ' Mr J. C. Cook, of Johannesburg, a retired architect and owner of a farm of 700 acres in the Transvaal, has just completed a comprehensive tour of New Zealand and has been very much impressed with the farm lands of the Dominion. “The growth on New Zealand farmlands is astounding,” he said in an interview. “The pastures are better than those of England, and the clovers and grasses which have been introduced seem to have been established under ideal climatic and soil conditions. They are the secret of the tremendous carrying capacity of the dairy farms.” “Intensive farming is the striking feature of New Zealand,” he continued, and many a farm of 70 acres appears to provide a better living than one of 700 acres in South Africa. Partly this appears to be due to the conditions, but there are districts in the Transvaal and Cape Province where it should be possible to apply the same methods with great advantage. Large numbers, of South African farms have a poor appearance, they are often overstocked in relation to their carrying capacity, they lack hedges and shelter, and the paddocks are tod large. In New Zealand these mistakes seem to have been avoided.” Yet the Government of South Africa was giving much more generous financial assistance to the farmers of the Union, he said, than was being extended by the New Zealand Government to

Dominion producers. Grants were made at low interest and on easy terms of repayment for the purchase of farms, for fencing, clearing and other developmental work,- for the purchase and improvement of stock, and for farm dwellings and other farm buildings. The aim was to assist in raising the quality of sheep and cattle, to reduce the loss due to under-nourish-ment and disease, and generally to build up the agricultural and pastoral industries. English and Dutch farmers were being given similar assistance, without racial distinction, and a large sum was paid out annually from the premium on gold in the national effort. HORSES AND OXEN. One advantage possessed by New Zealand in the working of farms, observed Mr. Cook, was the widespread use of horses. In South Africa horses could not be used because of a sickness which affected them, and the only alternative was to keep oxen. An ox, however, was slow and less powerful; in strength a horse was the equal of three oxen and was much faster. Mr. Cook referred briefly to Dominion architecture. Christchurch, he said, suggested a fine Tudor university atmosphere, which reminded a visitor of Cambridge. Dunedin was well-built and had Edinburgh characteristics. Auckland and Wellington, had made the most of the unrivalled settings around their harbours, and their systems of traffic control had done much to avoid the congestion due to narrow streets and crowding in towards the centre. The marketings on the road surfaces he considered played a valuable part in traffic regulation.

Mentioning finally the sign-posting of the highways, he said: “If a stranger obeys the road signals he should have no trouble in finding his way about and he should be certain to come out alive.”