WAIKATO TO GROW CROPS.

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21199, 23 August 1940, Page 11 (Supplement)

WAIKATO TO GROW CROPS.

EH ill 111 More bacon is required and here again Waikato fanners are re-adjusting usual practices to carry on more pigs to the baconer stage. To most of them ill the production of porkers would be more convenient, but bacon has been listed as | one of the essential foodstuffs required by Great Britain, and they have accordingly decided to set aside personal preferences and increase the production of this necessary pig meat. More bacon will necessitate considerably more cropping than has been done in the Waikato for a great many years, for pig trade authorities have stated that bacon production can only be economically and substantially increased by the growing of crops. Arable farming has not been

ws practised in the Waikato to any extent for it has been long recognised that the district lent itself admirably to grassland farming. The weed menace has always constituted a big handicap to cropping in this district for labour was necessary £§ to weed the crops just at the time that it was probably needed for harvesting. However, Waikato pig producers have not been asked to put any extensive areas down in crops but to sow approximately a j acre of crops to every ten cows. Even areas smaller than this woidd probably be sufficient to grow all the roots required and some authorities consider that only half an acre would be sufficient on the average farm. &|