FARMING WORLD.

Waikato Times, Volume 124, Issue 20734, 18 February 1939, Page 26 (Supplement)

FARMING WORLD.

By “STOCKMAM.”

Educating Young Farmer?. In recent years there is developing in this country a growing desire for agricultural education; because it is being realised that nearly every other country that has made unusual j headway towards material progress j and economic organisation has based j that progress and organisation on the , effective and patriotic use of educa- | tion. This is a fact which in our ; hurry to obtain results we arc liable • to overlook. The accomplishment, for I instance, of particular European ag- . ricultural countries are cited as ex- j amples of what we ought to achieve, i This is all to the good, but there is j a danger that those accomplishments j may be unduly magnified, apart from ; the fundamental means by which they j were attained, leading perhaps to the I hope that by discovering the “secret” . by which it was done we could do j equally well in a couple of years. | There is no secret or royal road to j their success and there will be no . secret or royal road to ours. What J success they have achieved is based on patient, practical, patriotic education extending back from at least 30 to 50 years, and nursed and encouraged during all that time by their own institutions. Because we have successful examples to follow and greatly improved educational implements to help us on the road to cor- j responding success, our success may not be nearly so long, but in substance it will be exactly the same. Drift from Land. If we do not reach that measure of success in the few years that is credited to others it will not be that we are inferior or that the task is impossible, but that our foundation for the work cannot be laid or seasoned in a day. It is often asserted that in this country the least intelligent boys are kept on the farm and the brainy ones sent to the town or city. This is a libel for which there is no foundation in fact. Any person 1 who is familiar with the customs and practices of country life knows that in many cases it is the respective j ages of boys in a family which usu- | ally decides which is to remain on the ; land irrespective of brain capacity, j There is fortunately, quite as high a : standard of intelligence retained on ! the land as that sent away, but, un- ! fortunately, the educational expendi- : ture on those who remain on the land is insignificant compared with the educational expenditure on those who leave it. This is the dead weight against agricultural development at present and this is the position we must radically change before we can hope to attain to eminence of any kind, agricultural or otherwise. We must start not at the top or in the middle, but at the foundation, and the foundation is in the home and in the primary school.

Care of the Herd. In handling the dairy herd, the man j who attends to the smallest details is the man who is going to succeed. He is on good terms with every member of his herd, and they respond | freely to his kindly treatment. It is ; not an exaggeration to state that | there are few dogs that can be trusted j to bring the cows quietly to the milki ing shed; and, in any case, dogs are ! better away from the herd if they I can be done without. A very little : matter upsets the average cow and I makes her uneasy and nervous, re- | suiting in a curtailment of the milk ; flow, and the heaviest milkers are j often the most nervous. Much ham I is done by rushing the herd through 1 gateways.

When a cow is purchased, which the seller describes as “in-calf,” there are several ways, states an Irish authority, of determining pregnancy after the fifth or sixth month from the date of service. The usual way, he says—- ] a rather rough and ready one—is to I thrust the points of the fingers against j the right flank of the cow, and, if • she is carrying a calf, a hard lump j will rebound against the abdomen, and i can be plainly felt by the fingers. | Many Irish breeders condemn this j method, not as being unreliable, but I as being cruel; and certainly they are ! warranted in expressing the opinion i that the punches sometimes given to ! the right flank are the cause of much unsuspected injury, and, occasionally 1 at least, are connected with difficult ; j parturition. In short, it is just one ; ; of those things that cannot be recom- ■ mended, because it is often abused by i the ignorant. Other Methods Adopted. Another way adopted by Irish breeders is to watch the cow when drinking cold water, as at that time the calf may be noticed to move vigorously in the womb. In the case of

I a pregnant mare, it is stated, this is j an unfailing test after the sixth j month. As to the plan of feeding for I the calf by pressure with the fingers, j it is not always reliable at so early a I stage as the fifth or sixth month, be- ; 1 cause, if the calf is lying in a natural ; position in the womb, it cannot be felt at all, and when it lies nearer the left • side of the cow it is not so easily felt 1 as on the opposite side. Hence, if the calf cannot be felt with finger presi sure at that early stage, it is not posi- [ tive proof that the cow is carrying a ■ j calf. Stock-owners sometimes introduce the hand gently into the vagina ! to determine pregnancy. If the mouth i of the womb is felt to be closed, but l j not tightly so, the cow is not in-calf; but if the opening is tightly closed,

the cow is certain to be pregnant. This plan, however, comments the Irish authority, is not to be recommended except in rare cases, because it is never advisable to introduce the hand except the circumstances clearly warrant the action. Probably the simplest way to determine whether a cow is in calf is to apply the ear to the flank, when the beating of the heart of the foetus may be plainly heard.

Northland’s Big Problem. One of the biggest problems facing North Auckland is the question of erosion. Here bush has been felled in many areas without the silghtest regard to the consequences and hundreds and hundreds of otherwise good land have been rendered temporarily useless by erosion, which, after all, is only the natural outcome of indiscriminate felling of bush in hill country. At the Science Congress at Canberra, Australia, last month, a survey of the soil resources of the Empire, each of The Dominions making its own investigations, as the first step towards a comprehensive plan for checking soil erosion, was suggested by Sir John Russell, director of the Rothamsted Experimental Station of the Imperial Soil Bureau of England, in an address. “There is no shirking the fact,” he said, “that soil which has taken long periods to create is now being rapidly destroyed by this generation.”

Sir John Russell, who was one of the official guests of the Congress, said the problem of preventing soil erosion resolves itself into the working out of some cropping system that would give at least as good protection as the natural cover, but at the same time would famish usable or saleable materials. “Probably the best type of settlement now,” said Sir John, “is not the wheat or dairying settlement catering for a world market, but a community settlement where a selfcontained group of people was settled, each capable of rendering some service to the community and receiving in return for his requirements for living. Here a general type of agriculture would be needed, and so far as one can see, the soil could be indefinitely conserved, and its fertility increased as a result of the cultivation.”

In such areas as North Auckland something will have, to be done in regard to the replanting of native trees at strategic centres in order to check sudden flooding to which some districts in the North are subjected. In many parts the damage as been already done, but it is not too late to make a move in the matter. Some strict supervision should be placed over bush felling operations in order to ensure that the value of any farming land is not menaced.