INTENSE FARMING.

Waipukurau Press, Issue 301, 29 August 1908, Page 6

INTENSE FARMING.

How older lands make small farming pay is shown in an article in “Public Opinion,” stating how French produce is increased by intensive cultivation, involving’ patient, persistent labour, the constant use of the spade, and almost hourly attention. It is a commonplace that in France by intensive culture market gardeners contrive to obtain £5OO worth of produce from an acre of land. The secret of success lies in raising the temperature of the soil by placing beneath the surface stratum a deep layer of manure, and covering the beds with frames, which again are embedded in manure. By this means a temperature of 90 degrees is maintained in the dead of winter. This system has been in vogue many years’ with the result, according to a French firm, that the gross produce works out at £6OO to £7OO an acre. When it is remembered that during the season the export of new potatoes from the Breton ports reaches 1000 tons daily, and that whole trainloads of early potatoes leave Southampton for the London market, .some idea can be obtained of the enormous market for early growth. Early asparagus is conveyed by fast trains from countries so far afield as Italy, and sold in London at nine shillings a bundle. The imports of early lettuce from Paris and Northern France reach hundreds of crates per day, and fetch a high price.

An Ashburton resident informed a “ Guardian ” reporter that while he was passing a paddock in which a flock of ewes were lambing, he noticed a hawk pounce down upon a lamb that had apparently just been born. Despite the cries of the ewe, the hawk kept her at bay by flying at her and screeching, but by the time the traveller had tied up his hoise and reached the scene, the hawk had killed the lamb, whose eyes it had picked out.