FARMERS AND FARMING. No. XVII.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2140, 27 March 1886, Page 2 (Supplement)

FARMERS AND FARMING. No. XVII.

Hay, chaff, outs aud straw, or thoso articles of agricultural produce which constitute the food and bedding of horses aud other cattle. And they form no mean or insignificant item in the farmer's calculation of \ rofit, In many instance** they may even form the staple productions of the farm ; if bo they arc even in a worse plight as far as auctioneers charges are concerned than are cattle breeders and graziere. In f.ict they are subject to the most extortionate charge* of any. Th^re are commission, carting, storage, loading and unloading charges. Hay, chaff, and straw, are subject to a 7£ per cent, commission ; oats, 2J per cent, commission ; carting, Is per ton ; storage, loading, etc., I shall not take into account, as it is mostly optional whether senders care to wait for a market. A man has 50 acres in oats, which he intends to make into obaff, and if we take the production at 2 tons per acre, we shall hare 100 tons of chaff for the market, and taking it as a good article it would be worth £4 10s per ton, equal to £450, which at 7£ per cent, commission makes £33 15s, or 6s 9d per ton, which, j with the carting amounts to 7s 94 per ton. Good hay at 105t per ton and 7£ per cent, commission, equals nearly 7s 10|d per ton, and another Is for carting, sorely, if our farmers are in any tease of the word' reasoning animals, they must, nay cannot help but lee what mules they are to spbmit to this extortion merely for 1 pasting the goods through a man's bands. | Straw is 25s per load, and 7£ pec cent, commission equals nearly Is lO&d per load, with another Is for cartage, whioh | in this case amounts to 4 per cent, or a charge of 11£ per cent, upon every load of straw. If a farmer I should look upon ll£d per cent, as' a very handsome I profit in return for capital and labour expended and risks undergone. The comuiia*ion of 2£ per cent, upon oatt, and taking them at 20* per quarter, is equal to sixpence, or 2s 6d for every 40 bushels, whioh Wfi will suppose to be an average production per acre, but this is nothing compared to 15s 6d commission and cart* ing per acre for chaff, and 17s 9d per acre for hay, taking the production at 2 tons per acre. And yet we are not pup • posed, (by the poor innocents at home), to besubjeet to any rents out here in this land of Goshen. This is the auctioneer's department only. For the largest proportion of horse feed and litter 4 goes into the dealer's hands, hence in ' addition to commission there is this middleman profit to consider. Taking our example of chaff realising 90s per ton at auction, this when sold retail fetches 120s per ton, or 30s be* tween the wholesale and retail prices, equal to a 33 per cent, advance upon the wholesale price. And the hay at 103 a per ton would retail for £7 per ton or <55s be* tween the two prices, which is again 33 per cent, difference. The same may be said to hold good in respect of straw and oaten hay/ And there is about a 15 per cent, difference between the wholesale and retail prices of oats. In the category of horse feed carrots might be included, as they haven't been mentioned before. Upon this item there is a 7J per cent, commission and cartage, and putting 1 the wholesale price at 50s por ton the commission on this will be 3s 9d per ton, oartage Is, and supposing an acre produces six tons marketable goods, this gives a result of 28s per acre for commission and cartage. The retail price of these carrots will be 70s per ton or a 20a difference between the two prices, equal to 40 per cent. In 'dealing with the wholesale and retail prices of hay, chaff &c, the gains made by the retailers are grots profit*, from which the expenses have to be deducted. And now for the consideration of the lafit, but not by any means the least article of importance to the farmer and the country at large— wool. In dealing with this item I leave ont of account that portion of it which may pass into wool merchants' hand} to be exported on their own account and risk. So I have about 1,600,0001bs of wool to treat of. This quantity is manufactured into various classes of goods in this country. As a starting point I fix the average price at whioh this wool would be sold at 7d per lh, equal to £46,678. I don't suppose that this wool after passing through the auctioneer's hands is bought by merchants and then re-sold to the manufacturers. The managers or some official of our woollen factories will attend the wool auotions and bny direct, and' so avoid the additional pickings of a middleman. We have about £4700 worth of wool passthrough auotioneero' hands, at a 5 per cent commission, this amount to £2350. Thenthereiscarting, weighing, storage and insurant}* 1 . These hitter items I put at 3s per bale of 4001bi, equal to another £600, storage charges will vary with the time whioh is aboutli percent. .Insurance and the goods are in store. The total of the above oharges is 6£ per cent, on every pound ol wool sold, and if the average production per sheep eqnals 6lbs at 7d per lb=2s lid, 6£ per cent on this is nearly 2 Jd. This ia in addition to "our friend's" charges upon sales of live stock and fat sheep. I am almost afraid to pursue this matter further on the present occasion, as being liable to launch me into a premature discourse on free trade and protection, for the manufactures of our .woollen factories have a limited protection of 15 per cent ad valorem. The only thing to be regretted in connection with the projected Auckland factory is that the whole of the shareholders are not fanners. Aft usual, these poor dormant and patient animals seem to be incapable of comprehension and energy, and let everything directly or indirectiy affecting their interests - slip out of their own bands into those hands the owners of which are not of tho friendliest disposi. tion. After going through the details of charges and profits, the former of which are wholly, the litter in part, contributed by producers, one can hardly help comparing "our intelligent farmers" to a tennis ball when (it in in play, a thing of no will, and no direction of its own except what is imparted to it by the manipulator* of the racquet. And these poor men have been so terribly knocked out of time by one and another of their manipulators that they have no energy left, and I am very gravely beginning to doubt whether or not their brains— if they ever had any — have been pulped or beaten into water — no, not the latter, for water oan always be turned to some uso, but theio particular farmers' brains are. as far as present appearances go, of no absolute use whatever, except it be to conceive a twaddle on their grievances and position, which it continually being given utteranoe to like magpibs. They are absolutely helpless, which is self-imposed. In one of my earlier letters I gave our farmers credit! for a large degree of intelligence. Was I right in thus flattering a hybrid class of men who are incapable of what is generally supposed to be the first Uw of human nature—self-preserva-tion ? The future must prove the truth of my flattery. For the present I leave them to the meditation of the facts aud figures whioh I have placed before them. No, poor souls, they might be perplexed by so many figures, when not arranged in proper form, so in my next I shall give them a total account of the figures at already detailed, so that they may see — if they are not mentally blind — still more clearly how they and the consumers are — well, hoodwinked. Ut Peosim.