PROFIT IN FARMING

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 19, 19 December 1932, Page 8

PROFIT IN FARMING

LOOKING TO THE FUTURE. PROFESSOR PEREN’S VIEW. Farming as a profession 'was discussed by Professor Peren, principal of Massey Agricultural College, during the course of a speech he made at the “break-up” ceremony at the Dannevirlce High School. Careful organisation and attention to detail, he said, rvouid become just as important and essential to agriculture as they were to the secondary industries. Professor Peren said that in view of the present difficulties of the farmers it might be thought that farming did not offer very much in the way of opportunities. “Don’t be misled,” he said, by the assumption that successful farming is a thing of the past. You can fake for granted, on the other hand, that from a period of unavoidable economic adjustments there will emerge a set of conditions which will allow farming to be carried out once more on a P a basis. This is no idle prophecy, the necessary adjustments, however painful thev may be, will take place automatically,. as the nation must live and pay its way, and has no alternative but to live oil farming. “Ultimately we shall get back on to a basis which will permit an .industrious and hardworking farmer to make a good living out of his profession. “As a result of the present depression, and also in view of the fairly mature stage of land development which we have now reached, we shall almost certainly see a steady improvement in the standard of our farming in the future. The days when big money could bo made out of raising land values have passed; they represent a phase in the lives of all new countries. Henceforth profits will be governed by ability to farm well. A sound knowledge of the principles of the management of stock and of arable farming will be essential. “Careful organisation and attention to detail will become just as important as they are in secondary industries. They are, of course, practised to-day by all our best farmers, but they will have to be more generally adopted in the future. One can see the increasing competition coming from Australia, the Argentine, and even South and it should be perfectly clear that the combination of circumstances will force us to work all the time for an improvement in the quality of our proU “We have done well in this respect in the past with one glaring exception : our crossbred wool is very tar from what it ought to be and could be. We must frankly admit that we have paid more attention to filling the bale than to quality. Many of us are now paying the penalty.’