FARMERS AND FARMING. No. VIII.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2113, 23 January 1886, Page 2 (Supplement)

FARMERS AND FARMING. No. VIII.

We must now adjourn with our newfladgad "landowner" to hia estate. Ho may be an EDgliah or colonial farmer, or an English or colonial tradesman, a man •with little money, or much money. The faot U, he bos over-reached his means by buying tnoro land than his capital is competent to do justice to. He ia, to start with, handicapped by a mortgage. The property he has bought may be either improved or unimproved. If improved, he ho* had to pay for the improvement, of Whatever description. If nnimprovcd, he has nil to do in the way of building: house, fencing, and putting the land into grans and crops. Anyhow, he is in possession at present. He surveya bis dominion with pride and gratification. Aye, my good man, now is the time wherein you must partake of all the enjoyment possible, the enjoyment of possession, the enjoyment of scheming and laying plans for the future, and in the glow of your enthusiasm, in all likelihood building castles in the air. Let your cummer of enjoyment have its full swing, at the Utmost it will be bnt brief, for rapidly following in its wake will come your winter of discontent. Your ideas or soliloquising may run on in the following style : — First will be chosen a suitable site for a house, on some prominence with a full view of the land and of the surrounding scenery. It shall be built so as to afford a comfortable house for Sur wife and family, and then in the ture to pass to your ohildren. Your shelter trees shall be planted in suob a position as to afford good shelter, not only for the honse, garden, and orchard, bat also the outbuildings for your stock, though in this latter ease our farmers are 'not so humane or thoughtful as they 'Ought to be. Your small honse paddooks—this latter term is an outrageous parody upon the grand old name of 41 field " — will be conveniently arranged around the house and outbuildings. Thon will be entered upen the scheming and laying out of your land into paddocks— l u*e the name under protest, as being the one in common use in this country, thengh more's the pity — for the future regular rotation of crop*, some to go into grass, some into oats and some into turnips. Then comes the calculation of the oapaoity of the land to carry so many head of stock. This brings us to the business part of farming, or that part of it whioh brings the farmer into contact with all business people connected with farming, that is, with its regular routine, as buying seeds, manures, implements, horses, cattle, sheep to., but more particularly with 'ho former and the latter, as it occurs annually to a greater or lesser extent. As an opening to this part of our subject. I give an anecdote as follows : — At Uluar the political agent wished to plant an avenue of trees on either side of the road in front of the shops for the purpose of giving tmade, and had decided to put in peepul trees, which are considered sacred by the Hindoos ; but the native traf'eimen one ai.d all declared that if this were done they would not take the shops, and when pressed for a reason, replied it was because they could not tell untruths or swear falsely under their shade, adding, " and bow can we carry on business otherwise?" The force of this argument seems to have been acknowledged as the point was yielded, and other trees planted instead. I think New Zealand trade is mostly carried on in the same way, by fraud and untruths. We will suppose that our farmer has purchased his seed from some honest and just merchant, who is a splendid specimen of " probity," and who would not for one momeni think of cheating hia fellow man, but supplies at the lowest "possible" price, the best " possible "t" t article, and as to adulteration or dealing in old seeds, avaunt inch irrational and wicked ideas ! Any way, the seed is bought and ■own, especially grass and clover, and with impatience and, eagerness the result is watched for. You may wait till Doomsday; the result will be the same, a paddock of grass that will carry one bullock to every four or five cures, instead of one to every two or two and ahalf. And many a poor farmer is at his wits' end to account for it. In many cases the land is blamed ; in others the want of cultivation. Both opinions may be in a measure correct. The fact of the matter is this, that our farmers pay a targe pries for a very interior article. During a walk in any of the districts of Waikato, it is a pity to see the paddocks growing about half the grass they should do, particularly "new lands," but instead of grass an immense amount of weeds. The latter are, in a measure, due to the wretched way in which most of the farming operations are carried on. My remarks made in respect of grass seeds apply to all other seeds. Manures are bought by farmers which, I am sure, are not worth half the money paid for them. I have sown manures in which there was fully 30 to 40 per cent. of time and gypsum, and these manures were; bought as first-class M bones." F have tried to persuade farmers to have, ' some samples analysed and thus to arrive at a true knowledge of the matter, and publicly expose the sellers of adulterated articles, or receive an adequate drawback. The former is the most honest way, as the latter only benefits yourself, and leaves .the rest of farmers a prey to such wolves as endeavoured to swindle you. The expense of an analysis in this country prohibits individual farmers nndei taking the cost, and they philosophically console themselves with the idea that if they are swindled, so are the rest. And thus the matter goes on. Frauds in the matter of the farmer's requirements are continuously being perpetrated upon them, resulting in wretched paddocks of grass and unremunerative ciops. I cannot pursue this enquiry further upon this occasion, as it will bring in subjecto which requite specially dealing with. I seriously think the best tiling a new arrival can do, after a few weeks' experience in. the colony, and if still determined to buy land -not that I consider going into farming in these times by any means a bad look-out — but without an experience of many months, he is almost sure to make a false beginning, either one way or another, that is in buying more land than his means can stand, or land that is not worth having as a gift, and rather than do this, he had better announce in the leading papers bis idea, " thac upon mature consideration, and on the disinterested advice of his^ friends, he had decided on the following conrse: Instoad of going through the prolonged and agonising process of being plundered by slow and artful means, to at once call a meeting of all those firms and individuals who usually prey upon the farmer, and tell them it is bis intention— after a careful calculation as to proportions — to divide his substance amongst them at once, starting wjth tho greatest knaves, and that his chances of succos* in furminir would* be infinitely better, starting with nothing and bh a labourer, than playing into their hands throughout the best years of his life." Ut Pbo3im.

Partridges have not been so plentiful in Canada for years as they are now. From nearly every section the same reports come to hand, and they have been pnrchaseable in the Toronto market at 60 cents, per brace. v At the Liverpool Assize on Noreraber 17th, Joseph Flynn, aged 17, was sentenced to death for the murdnr of Edwin Pearson at Rootle on September 19fch, The prisoner challenged a party ' who. had been to a dancing olassto fight, and ran throngh a gronp with a knife, tritfjfwbioh he wounded two or three, and stabb«d the deceased fatally. The jury added a recommendation of mercy fotntirTerdiot, • -