Farmers' Supplement TO THE ASHBURTON GUARDIAN.

ASHBURTON, CANTERBURY, NEW ZEALAND: MAY, 1880.

Editorial.

DEPRESSION IN TRADE AND UNPROFITABLE FARMING.

TfiERE is scarcely a street in any town in this colony at the present time ■where a large part of the current con versation every day is not about the depression of trade, and the want of that article which the Apostle Paul called “ the root of all evil,” but which most British colonists regard as the root of all happiness,—money. About the correctness of the alleged fact there can be no doubt, but the causes as signed do not at all go to the bottom of the matter. One tradesman, for in stance, will tell us that everything is going wrong, because we have spent almost all the money of our various British loans, and are not likely to get much more from that quarter again in a hurry. They are right, but what they urge is only quite a small part of the truth. Merely to borrow is only off the evil day, and make it worse when it comes. Others, again, descant on the large sums of money locked up in land bought on specula tion, and now doing no good to either the owner or anyone else. They are right, but that is still only a part of the truth. The fact is, that to any thoughtful person who considers the circumstances of the case the wonder is not so much that trade is dull and money scarce, but rather that trade is not much duller and money far scarcer. As soon as we look at both sides of the national ledger we find that on the one side we are spending enormously, and on the other we are receiving little. We are in the position of a sick man who is being bled every day, and yet does not receive as much food as when in his normal condition. To drop all simile, the real cause of the financial depression is the fact that we awe twenty-seven and a half millions of money, on which we pay annually about a million and a half for interest and sinking fund; whilst on the other hand the number of the population en gaged in farming is very small in pro portion to the whole number of colonists, and of even these far the larger number are apparently not farm ing at a profit. The recent statistics tend to show that altogether we have only about 47,000 people out of a population of about ten times that number engaged in either agricultural or pastoral pursuits; the rest of the population, except the miners, doing little, except as consumers and dis tributors ; and that with only a middling harvest of wheat and oats, the prices ruling don’t even pay for the cost of growing. It has been questioned whether the report of oats having been lately sold at BJd per bushel is true ; but we are informed on good authority that even as low as 6d has been taken in Southland for oats of fair quality, and that large sales have been effected at 9d. The debits in the state ledger are large beyond all ex ample elsewhere in the civilized world ; the credits are lamentably small.

Tor the present we leave the former evil to the financiers, knowing well

that at best they can only devise a slow and not very satisfactory remedy. The other evil, namely, the unprofit ableness of farming at present carried on in New Zealand, forces itself on our attention as a matter of vital impor tance in every agricultural community. Farming and grazing already are the great producing interests of the colony. Last year, as we find [from the official returns, out of about ,£5,000,000 worth of exports from Hokitika and Lyttle ton, southwards through the Middle Island, about £4,000,000 worth con sisted of wool, grain, and flour, and that, too, after the home market had been supplied with the staff of life. Why is it then that with land and climate, unsurpassed for excellence in the world, farming itself, whether on a large or small scale, does not pay its expenses. The answer is evident. We take no pains to supply the market with what it requires, in the quantities it requires, and so our pockets remain empty be cause we are unable to make profitable sales. We are somewhat in the posi tion of the enterprising young Mel bourne merchant who ordered from the home country 1000 pairs of skates to arrive about Christmas time !

Just now we are all growling about oats not paying at Is per bushel. It has pertinently been asked, as there is so little demand for oats as such, why keep our oats, when by converting them into cattle or pigs we can make them pay double with ease. It has been reckoned that pigs can be fattened on oatmeal at the present time,, so that the price of their flesh for the market would be not more than 4d per lb. It is ob vious that here there would be an ex cellent margin for profit, even without allowing for the circumstance that the flesh of pigs fattened in the way men tioned is of finer quality than any other. There is also the extra advan tage that when the same flesh is cured, the demand for hams and bacon is, and is likely for a long while to come, to be practically unlimited. In the United States it is as much a matter of course to lay down a certain quan tity of land in hogs, as it is for a draper to have certain compartments of his shop dedicated to ribbons, or petticoats. ; Indeed, the time has come when farm ing must be looked upon as a trade re quiring if not from each individual farmer, at any rate from the whole farming community, the same large and constant supply of all articles of regular consumption which we expect to find in the shop of a retail dealer, of all the wares in his particular trade. At present land laid down in wheat and oats does not pay, but if partly turned to account in raising pigs, or cattle, fowls, or geese, might bring in a very decent income. And it must be borne in mind that when farming is unprofit able. the outlook for the State is of the most dismal character. In an agricul tural colony, which this is in the main, if the chief producers, the farmers, are losing money, that means that the pro ducers tnemselves are in the position to a certain extent of becoming paupers, not contributing to the State, but drawing on its resources in soma quar ter.

We are persuaded, however, that no such bad luck as that is in store for us.

At the present time farming is in a transition state. It has arrived at that necessity. We must supply the home market entirely, and also learn to com pete in what is the great market of the world, so far as we are concerned, Great Britain. If the Americans can send their wheat to London and sell it at a profit, although the price is raised cent per cent, previously hy charges in transit from the farm to the port of shipment, our farmers in a fair field with no favor ought, at least, to be able to sell at the same price, their soil being better, and the cost of landing far less. How this is to be done is now the problem for the more intelligent of their number. If railway carriage to stage in which the home market is easily supplied, and even over saturated. The foreign trade is an absolute the nearest poit is too high, they must get it teduced ; if freight is too high, they must combine and get their mer cantile friends to charter vessels. The time has come when that necesity, which is said to be the mother of invention, must act as a great motive power, Hot long back farming required little training at first, or thought aterwards. All this is altered. Most of the more intelligent will pull through, and thrive, but the less intelligent, and less in formed, will in many cases go to the wall. Till that time comes, farming will be depressed, and trade will be depressed with it, and money be found very tight.

The Dairy. AN AMERICAN DAIRY FARM.

The farm of the Hon. Lewis F. Allen, on Grand Island, under the management of his son, Mr Cleveland W. Allen, is something over 500 acres. It is mostly a rich clay'loam, of generous depth and easily worked. The old pastures contain a great variety of grasses well adapted to dairy grazing and the production of an ex cellent quality of milk.

The general plan of this dairy, however, not to depend wholly upon pastures in summer, but to raise a variety of green crops upon which to full feed the cows in a dry time or when the pasture becomes de ficient in quality or quantity. It >s in tended that every cow shall have an oppor tunity to do her best. She_ is only relied upon to convert food into milk, and is not expected to work any miracle in the pro duction of milk from pedigree or breed, although the breed is particularly con sidered, as having the capacity and habit of producing the largest quantity and best quality of milk from a given amount of food. Full rations are to be provided at all seasons, and in as succulent a state as the season will permit. Clover, fodder corn, millet, Hungarian grass, oats, oats and peas—all fed green in their season will furnish the extra food for milk. The dairy being kept for the production of butter, the herd is selected with that end in view. The elder Mr Allen, as is well known, regards the Shorthorn as ad mirable for the production of milk as well as beef, and thinks for quantity the milk ing strain of Shorthorn is not surpassed by any~breed ; but for richness and color of cream he is favorably inclined to the Guernsey. It is proposed, therefore, in this dairy to graft the Guernsey upon grade Shorthorns. Selected common cows are croaned with a Shorthorn male from a milk ing! family, and the heifers from this

Shorthorn are again selected and crossed with the Guernsey male. Only selected animals are bred, A calf with poor appetite and digestion is discarded, whatever the blood, for to eat and digest is the foundation of milk pro duction. The system ot selection and breeding is expected to produce liberal milkers with high-colored and flavored cream. The Shorthorn often produces a richly colored cream, and Guernsey cream, is somewhat higher colored Jersey, So this double cross may be relied upon for quality and color to suit the most fas tidious taste. The herd now numbers about forty head, but is to be increased to eighty.

The most important matter of tempera ture in the handling of milk must be regu lated in a dairy house. This should not. be subject to atmospheric changes, bnt have a comparatively even temperature. The Messrs Allen have given much atten tion to this feature of dairy management. Their dairy honse is built of stone, with double walls, the outside being 16 inches, and inside 10 inches, laid in mortar, hav ing an sir space of 6 inches between them. The roof is double, so as to prevent any heat from penetrating through it. The windows are upon the north side, with blinds. The height of the story is 10 feet, and the floor is of solid concrete, worked down very smoothly, and as easily cleaned as a floor of polished marble. The main dairy room is 14 by 18 feet, for setting the milk in four long pans. The milk may be further refrigerated by ice water in a channel surrounding the_ milk. The rest of the dairy house is occupied by a churning room and store room. There is a small wooden building adjoining the churning room ; in this is the wash room, with a large, deep slate sink, in which all the dairy utensile are washed. Here is also a 3-horse engine, with a 5-horse tubular boiler, which gets up steam very quickly, runs the churn, and furnishes hot water and steam for all purposes of cleans ing. This little engine reduces the labor so materially that a slender girl is able to do all the labor about the dairy house and the entire manufacturing of the butter. She is, of couse, a dairy expert. The engine pumps the water for the boiler, and for all other purposes. The temperature of the dairy room stands at 80 deg. to 65 deg. in the hottest weather.

The milk is set at a temperature of 55 deg. or 60 deg., the pans being so large that the present quantity of milk does not fill them more than 6 to 7 inches deep, and the temperature is not reduced so low as would be required for deeper setting. A barrel churn is used, which is easily managed with the engine. The butter is washed in the granular state before gather ing, is worked with an ordinary lever worker upon a marble slab—the salt worked in when taken from the churn ; it is then allowed to stand for a few hours, when it is re-worked and put up in pound prints, wrapped in muslin, and placed in. drawers, each containing fifteen prints. Four of these drawers are placed in a case and sent to the dealer, who sells to hia customers.

With all these facilities, and a careful handling of the milk, the product might be expected to reach, as it does, a high, degree of excellence. It was placed upon the market at Buffalo, at the lowest point of last summer’s low prices, and sold readily at 10 cents above the market for first quality pail butter. It has kept abovfl that figure above the market since. This dairy is to produce butter winter and summer, half the herd coming in at each, season. There are many such private dairies, and it is encouraging that nearly all of them are eminently successful in getting remunerative price* It shows that only skill may win.—E. W. S., in Country Gentleman.