Take a Note of These Talks:

New Zealand Listener, Volume 1, Issue 8, 18 August 1939, Page 53

Take a Note of These Talks:

1YA: Grass Staggers, from the Livestock Division, Monday, August 21, 7.30 p.m. Top Dressing in Eastern Bay of Plenty, by C. R. Taylor, Fields Instructor, Whakatane, Monday, 7.40 p.m. 2Y¥C: The Value of Bees to Agriculture, from the Department of Agriculture, Tuesday, August 22, 7.30 p.m., followed by a talk under the auspices of the Westmere Young Farmers’ Club, on Pasture Management on a High Production Fat Lamb Farm. 3YA: Lucerne Growing, by A. H. Flay, under the auspices of Canterbury Agricultural College, Thursday, August 24, 7.35 p.m., followed by the Sheep Survey. Preparing Fruit for Exhibition, trom the Department of Agriculture, Friday, August 25; 7.35 p.m. 4YA: Sleepy Sickness in Ewes, from the Livestock Division, Monday, August 21, 7.30 p.m., followed by a talk for Young Farmers’ Clubs at 7.40. 4YZ: Preparing for Lambing Time, by G. Stevenson, Tuesday, August 22, 8 p.m. A Peep at Smithfield If you are lucky enough fo visit Britain you will of course go to Smithfield. But you may not be lucky. If you don’t like your Prospects of getting a first-hand impression you will regret having missed what the farmers of Southland were told about this famous market in a recent talk from 4YZ. Here are a tew of the things said: "Smithfield was first heard of early in the 12th century, and slowly grew into the cattle market for London. Its cattle-market, slaughter houses, and meat shops lasted until 1855, when the cattle-market and slaughter houses were moved to Islington two miles north of Smithfield, where they still have a small killing capacity, "From that small beginning Smithfield has grown into the largest dead-meat market in the world. It covers an area of ten acres, handles thirty-five million pounds worth of meat annually, employs seven thousand men, while there are eight million consumers within a radius of twelve miles. In the eit 1938 over 460 thousand tons of meat were sold Smithfield. To give you some idea of what this means in terms of stock, I have here the approximate figures for the second Monday of this year. There were five thousand head of cattle, 50 thousand sheep and lambs, five thousand pigs, over 100 tons of poultry, and 70 tons of rabbits sold in the one day-perhaps it is just as well it isn’t a live-stock market. "Where does all this meat come from? There are twenty-one countries which send meat to Smithfield. Beside England, Scotland, and Ireland, there are the

Empire countries of Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, and Southern Rhodesia, while the foreign countries are the United States of America, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil, Patagonia, Chile, the Netherlands, Denmark, France, Italy, Russia, Yugo-Slavia, and Iceland, the latter supplying good light-weight lambs. "Smithfield is never closed by day or by night for receiving meat. Underneath the market itself is a goods station connecting dll the railways in England,

and meat is brought up on to the market from there by lifts. Much of the Scotch, English, and Irish, comes through the night by special trains, while the rest is brought up by huge lorries. The chilled beef is brought straight to the market from the boats, mainly by large lorries, 400 of which can be backed in at one time for unloading. The frozen meat is likewise brought up from the cold stores near the docks and around Smithfield. "Scotch beef is decidedly the best on the market. The English beef is inclined to be on the heavy side, because Smithfield is the only outlet for the bigger beef as it has such a large trade with hotels and restaurants. The English and Scotch lamb are both very good, but as the average weight of good quality lambs would be well over 40Ibs., they are too heavy for the general trade. The.English pork is a very big trade and is of a high standatd. Veal is a luxury trade and I have seen none out here to equal the quality which is seen on Smithfield. Of small goods a large percentage is English, but as you know, lamb-livers in large quantities are now exported from

New Zealand, while ox-livers and ox kidneys are exported from Argentina. Besides these there are many other small goods, for there is a far bigger trade for them at Home than I have seen out here. "Smithfield is also the main market for the poultry and game for London, while outside Smithfield is the centre for bacon, eggs, and butter. Turkeys, at Christmas time, completely over-shadow all other meat on the market and come from all over the British Isles and the Continent, besides the frozen from the Americas. We do not see a great deal of the bone-beef and veal, that is to say, the bobby-calves which are exported from New Zealand. This is mainly sent to Glasgow, Liverpool and the poorer neighbourhoods where I believe they are used a great deal for sausages. "Before I came to New Zealand eighteen months ago, I was told that the cattle here were bred to keep the grass short for the sheep. However in the three years I had spent on Smithfield, I had seen the New Zealand chilled beef become from an unknown article to one that was inquired after, and which occasionally came very near the Argentine standard, so I realised that the status of the cattle in New Zealand must be changing." Do You Agree? A provocative Professor of Philosophy in the University of London, Cyril Edwin Mitchinson Joad, complained the other day that farmers have no appreciation of beauty. He wanted a "bite," and it came. Here is the answer made by Mrs, SackvilleWest in a recent issue of the New Statesman: My experience of farmers (and labourers, too) is that many have a deep though inarticulate appreciation of the beauty of Nature. They may not be endowed with Joad’s gift of expression, but the silent contentment they bring to the smoking of their evening pipe as they lean over a gate when the day’s work is done, surveying a clean orchard or a good crop coming up, is at least as deep as Joad’s, who has not had the bother, sweat, risk, and expense of spraying the orchard or sowing the crop. I deny absolutely that the countryman has no sense of the beauty he has himself (inadvertently and centennially) created. Of course he takes a more practical view than Joad. He surveys his acres with an eye to caterpillars, weevils, and weeds. That does not imply blindness to the beauty of his landscape. It implies only that Joad-in-the-country has nothing to do but to observe the landscape and think of his next book, whereas the countryman in his rare hour of leisure has the double job of enjoying his acres and of wondering whether he has done the best he can by them for their own benefit and his own necessary profit. High Production Farms The activities of the Young Farmers’ Clubs become more interesting every day. One of the projects suggested to, and eagerly taken up by, the Karawaka Club of North Taranaki was to prepare a "considered opinion" on the pasture management problems of a high-production dairy farm. The opinion was duly broadcast from 2YA last week, and a summary of it will appear in our next issue,