FARMERS’ COLUMN.

Waipukurau Press, Issue 281, 11 July 1908, Page 6

FARMERS’ COLUMN.

One good cow will often earn as much profit as three bad ones, and eat less than half as much. An old Yorkshire farm saying is “ Clean your land before it’s dirty, feed your land before it’s hungry, rest your land before it’s weary.” A travelling mob of sheep, bound for New South Wales, showed the effects of want of feed terribly while camped near Longwood, on the North-eastern line. The animals, many of them with their wool half gnawed off, took possession of the street verandahs, and many died there, the total loss amounting to 150 in one night. That which lies at the foundation of all stock, or the successful management of it, is the fact—the common, but too much-neg-lected axiom—that “ like produces like.” This principle extends to form, constitution, qualities, predisposition to and exemption from disease, and to everything that can render an animal valuable or worthless. It equally applies to the dam and to the sire. It is the foundation of scientific andsuccessful breeding. —Leslie Steel, in Cape of Good Hope “ Agricultural Journal.”

On the evidence of the Wisconsin experiments the pronouncement is made that a cow is at her best during her fifth or sixth year, up to which time the production of milk and butter-fat, if the animal is in normal condition, increases each year. As to the length of time that a cow will maintain her maximum production it is remarked that this will depend largely upon her constitutional strength and the care with which she is fed and managed, and here again general experience is in entire agreement with the verdict of searching investigation. A good average cow, properly managed, should maintain her highest standard of production almost unimpaired until after ten years of age, while it is found that a considerable number of excellent records were made by cows for some time after they had passed jthat age.

Those who are of opinion that Spain as a sheep country is of little standing will be surprised to learn that the last official returns give the number of sheep there as over 13| millions. The quality of the merino wool grown is divided into three classes, as in Australasia. The finest quality comes from the province of Estremadura, medium from La Mancha, which also possess the largest-framed sheep, and strong-wool from Andalusia. Clothing wool sheep are found in Aragon and Valladolid, and coarse wools (British breeds) in Navarre. Good merinos are also found in Logrono and Leon. The British breeds are mainly Cotswold, Shropshires and Oxford Downs, and these have also been successfully crossed with merinos. The flocks in La Mancha and Estremadura have to summer in Avila, Segoria, and Salamanca. A well-known breeder of this State, w 7 ho is making a tour though the sheepbreeding centres of America a,nd Europe, intends to visit some of the best of the Spanish flocks, and his notes thereon will no doubt be read with interest on his return.

The fine winter we are having is the general topic of conversation when farmers meet (says “Rusticus ”in the “ Canterbury Times”), and it is also a matter for hearty congratulation. The paddocks are keeping green a very long time, and very little bemand has been made upon the reserves being held for bad weather. Frosts are only occasionally experienced to any degree of severity, and all kinds of team work are being pushed on to the best advantage. The land is everywhere in excellent condition for ploughing, which is the general farm operation just now, as far as the teams are concerned. The winter wheat has gone in excellently, and there is every prospect of good yields if we only get a suitable spring. The land was in such good heart after the dry weather that the crops ame away very well. Stock are no doubt doing well, in spite of the shortage of turnips. Some of the earlier lambs are commencing

to lose their milk teeth, and these will not do well during the rest of the winter. At the annual meeting of the New South Wales Pastoralists’ Union, the president stated that more than £2000,000 worth of stock had been lost in the Riverina and in Victoria during the last three months owing to drought.

VICTORIAN IRRIGRATION SETTLEMENT.

The Victorian s Minister of Agriculture has developed a truly American idea of hustle. As he very well puts it, remarks the “ Pastoralists’ Review,” experimental demonstrations of the value of irrigation are useful, and so are lectures on the subject of how ane when to irrigate; but nothing is equal to the teaching of actual experience. . . “We have got to get out of the old groove and secure a leaven, so to speak,” he says, “of irrigation farmers from the United States.” The Minister intends to advertise the irrigation conditions of Victoria widely in America, and he believes it. would repay the Government, in the interests of Victorian agriculturists, to pay the expenses of two or| three representative American farmers to take a trip over to Victoria and travel about, there to see the conditions for themselves that they might advertise the country on their return to America. This, says the “ Review,” seems a sound enough idea, especially if it is followed up by free passages to American farmers about to take up land in Victorian irrigation settlements. The most effective way would be to say that it won’t cost you any more to come to Victoria and take up land, than it will to go to Canada, or to any other irrigation settlement. A few experienced farmers from the Pacific Slope, with their practical knowledge of how to make irrigated fruit farming pay, would be of inestimable benefit to the hot valleys of Central Otago.

FARMING IN THE STATES

Farming as a business, not for a living, this is the motif of the new farmer, says Herbert N. Casson in the “ American Review of Reviews.” The farmer is a commercialist —a man of the twentieth century. He works as hard as the old farmer, but in a higher way. His rule is of four m’s, mind, money, machinery and muscle. All are not of this type — the country, like the city, has its* slums —but. allowing exceptions, he is the most typical human product the United States has produced, and the most important, for in spite of its egotistical cities, that nation is still a farm-based nation. In the States the farm has become a factory. Four-fifths of its work is done by machinery, which explains how it can produce one-fifth of the wheat of the world, half of the cotton, and three-fourths of the corn, although only 6 per cent, of the human race reside in the States. To-day farming is mot looked upon as a drudgery ; it is a race, an exciting rivalry, between different States. For years Illinois and lowa ran neck and neck in the raising of corn and oats. Minnesota carries the blue ribbon for wheat, with Kansas breathless for second place. California has shot to the front in the , barley race ; Texas and Louisiana are tied in the production of rice ; Kentucky is tobacco champion, and New York for hay and potatoes leads the rest. lowa State only dates back sixty-t'vyo years. She is not large (little England is larger), yet with her hog money she could pay the salaries of all the monarchs of Europe. And this has been done by putting the drudgery upon machines. Harvesting by machinery has actually become cheaper than the ancient method of harvesting by slaves. Reaping by machinery has been reduced to less than a cent a bushel. The American farmer has always grown ideas as well as corn and potatoes. Step by step farming is becoming a sure and scientific profession. In Kansas wheat growing has become so sure that there has been no failure for thirteen years, and this prosperity has come about through the application of science, in colleges and elsewhere, to the study of the most fundamental of all human industry.