The Wiakato times AND THAMES VALLEY GAZETTE.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 1983, 24 March 1885, Page 2

The Wiakato ti mes AND THAMES VALLEY GAZETTE.

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TUESDAY, MARCH 2',, If>8». _^^ „ | , _ I Profkssok Church's exhaustive report on the cultivation of sugar-beet .11 England, wliich we republished .a our columns last week, has doubtless .been read with much interest. Nothing so practical in its character has yet appeared, and nothing more encouraging. It, inoreowr, m the most complete way, confirms and corroborates the eudence which Mr W. A. Graham has been at such pains to gather together during the last few years. In this respect it is of peculiar \.ilue, inasmuch <»s it show that Mr Graham and his friends have not been enacting the part of blind lenders of the blind, but were guided in their action by full and suflicient reasons. Tho most ob\ious facts which rise to the surface of Professor Church's report are (1) that a higher percentage of sugar than that laid down as a standard by Mr Graham (12 per cent) may reasonably bo looked for ; (2) that with ordinary care a crop of 15 tons per acre can be assured. In England, in a dry season and under disadvantages of other kinds, the average was 12 tons ; (3) that beet will succeed where other root crops have failed ; and (4) that the root, as food for cattle, has no superior, and on this ground alone is a profitable, crop. These are no new facts ; we have again and again adduced them in these columns. We reiterate them because they now bear the iniprimttltir of Professor Church. With such a testimonial we may, perhaps, permit ourselves to hope that the farming community will receive them with respect. The apathetic* hearing of the farmers towards the sugar-beet industry is as distressing as it is inexplicable. It is to be deplored for the reason that many rural industries which have been pursued in the past have almost ceased to return a prolit ; it is difficult to understand because the agricultural depression is so patent. With wheat at present prices, it is absurd to suppose that it can pay the farmer to grow it. Allowing nothing for rent, (or interest), and the merest triile for in. mure, ;i crop of wheat cannot be raised at a much less cost than, say £4 per acre. How seldom this sum is recouped by the crop the grower knows from bitter experience. It may be said that a large proportion of the cost of putting in the crop is to be set down as payment for the labour of the farmer and his horses. Indeed this argument was used by Mr Gillett at one of the beet-sugar meetings. He claimed that it would pay the farmer better to grow a crop at an apparent loss (that is, guaged by the market value of labour) than to let his land remain idle, and he quoted the case of Canterbury farmers who for years were content to receive for their grain a figure which represented very little more than the regular cost of cartage. But Mr Gillett and his confreres in the South would not have continued to grow grain under such conditions had they hit upon a more profitable crop. After the manner of Gaspar Becerra, they carved their fortunes out of that which lay nearest to hand. It happened in their case to be wheat. Painting doleful pictures is to us an uncongenial task, but it is our duty to speak plainly. We are not of that class which says that agriculture is going to the dogs, and that only a thin partition divides the farm from the Bankruptcy Court. We are satisfied that our farmers have too much backbone to cave in without a struggle. Nor indeed is there any such dreadful depression as is sometimes reported. Farming has not been a very lucrative business, but taken altogether, the farmers in this district have contrived to get along fairly well. Our anxiety arises from no wish to rescue them from the clutches of starvation, but rather from a desire to see them on the high road to the attainment of that " glorious privilege of being independent."