The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1886-10-09 00:00:00

Eke Stourbribge crut.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 9, 1896

DAIRY AND FIELD FARMING.

THE end of the corn harvest and the discus-
sions as to its extent and value to the British
farmer, have directed public attention to
that important section of agricultural in-
dustry to which we so lare-ely look for the
supply of staple food; while the holding of
the eleventh annual show of the British
Dairy Farmers' Association at Islington
Agricultural Hall this week, has placed sub-
jects associated with milk, butter, and cheese
production somewhat prominently before the
eye of newspaper readers than is usually the
case. First to glance at the latter branch of
farming in a seriously reflective light, it
may almost be said now-a-days that the con-
viction has become well-nigh universal,
notwithstanding that, for the sake of argu-
ment, it is admissible to grant that the
British agriculturist is not in a position to
meet and beat foreign farmers, located in
more favoured climes, in the matter of
cereal culture, that the English farmer
should be able to hold his own in the dairy
against all foreign competition, no matter
how hotly the alien dairyman may contend
with him in the world's markets. And this
is held to apply not only to the direct, but
to the contingent produces of dairy farming.
Is it not disappointing, then, to have to re-
member and recognise that the British
farmer until quite recently seemed to neglect
his dairy, valuable as he might have made it
—almost altogether? At any rate be failed
to see how profitable it ought to have been,
and regarded dairy work as only an occupa-
tion for the women folk of the farm, and but
a trifling ramification of the more serious
employment of corn and root growing,
pasture-tilling, and stock-raising. Meantime
we were importing eggs in millions from
Canada and almost every other quarter of
the globe ; looking to America more than the
home country for our cheese supply; and
relying upon Normandy and other parts of
the Continent for our butter, market stocks.
Thanks to thoughtful men and far-seeing
societies like that of the British Dairy
Farmers a very different view of the matter
is now being taken, and henceforth the
agriculturist who follows advancing intelli-
gence will be likely to set quite as much
store upon his cowsheds, his fowl runs, and
his dairy as he has done hitherto upon the
grain, root, and meat growing departments
of the farm. The tests in the milk producing
powers of various breeds of kine which have
been instituted by the Dairy Farmers' Asso-
ciation, cannot but be very valuable, while
the practicable consideration of the egg-
laying capabilities of the many kinds of
domestic fowls kept for profit should lead to
tangible improvement; and the encourage-
ment of amendations and new inventions
with regard to butter and cheese making
and marketing ought to prove really ser-
vicable to the agricultural industry now so
seriously depressed. It has been truly and
well said. that if there were not a consider-
able profit accruing from the preparation of
batter foreign producers would not display
their present readiness to supply our markets,
and the manipulation of substitutes and more
or less vile adulterations wculd cease to be
such an attractive employment to the un-
principled. The pleasingly practical and
often scientific processes of butter making,
exemplified at the London Dairy show this
week,lhave been most interesting and in-
structive, and this feature of the annual
exhibition would have alone justified the
continuance of the fixture, and served an
eminently useful end. Before passing nem
the dairy part of the subject to a brief con-
sideration of the outlook in grain growing,
we would earnestly commend milk, butter,
and egg production to those who find heavier
farming work a big drag and a great anxiety
and we would direct all such to the intelli-
gent teaching of the British Dairy Earmers'
Association as set forth in its annual show
and in its incessant work and publications.
Wheat, barley, and oats have not been culti-
vated at so low a ratio of remuneration to
the producer at any antecedent period, so
that the farmer has really good grounds for
grumbling. For this last 14 or 15 years
wheat has sold at so low a price that the
old grandfather farmer would certainly have
held it impossible that the grain could have
been grown for the money. It is not so long
back, indeed, that Royal Commissioners
held that eight shillings a bushel ought to be
regarded as an unremunerative return.
What would agriculturalists who have had
to take half that price say to this definition
of the limit of profitable production? See-
ing that Britain can never hope to compete
on level terms with some other more
favoured country in grain growing pine and
simple, it would be well if farmers applied
their energies more fully and exclusively in
the direction of dairying, as has already been
indicated, and in that of stock raising.
Want of capital doubtless keeps many
farmers in the old grooves, There are scores
of men with no reoney to invest in sheep and
cattle purchase, who will') up the flagging
fertility of the soil with artificial manure,
and rush off to market with their new-
gathered grain, eager to secure for it even
ruinous prices, so that they may make a
hand-to mouth sort of living. Good seasons
keep these invertebrate agriculturists for a
time out of the Bankruptcy Court, but in the
end their ruin must come; but meanwhile
they are hurting those who are employing
their capital and their labour thoughtfully
and wisely. We believe it was that emin-
ently practical farmer, Mr. Clare Sewell
Read, who said, sagely enough, that "if good
farming does not pay, bad must be ruinous.;
Here is the key-note to the position. Farm-
ing mast be prosecuted with intelligence as
well as industry. The hopelessly unprofit-
able must be abandoned; and that which
can be improved and made a more paying
occupation sh auld have all attention. Science
must bo applied as well as the plough to the
land; intelligence ought to accompany the
worker into even the least important
branches of farming work. And to this end,
such invaluable associations as the Royal
Agricultural Association of England, the
Dairy Farming Association, and all kindred
societies are doing good work. If the
farmer will but avail himself of the advant-
ages of the knowledge which they hold out,
we shall ere long have less of agricultural
depression to bewail.

CO NIMENTS ON CURRENT TOPICS.
NI:. GLADSTONE'S great speech to repre-
sentative Irishmen and women who came to
offer him at Harwarden the freedom of sev-
eral Irish cities, has evoked interest in the
world politic il as a bold re-statement of the
ex-Premier's position as one ardently d -
sirous of settling the ever-burning Hibernian
question by acceding to the Nationalist de-
mand for full control over purely national
affairs. Philo-Gladstonians receive the new
utterances of the member for Midlothian
with effusive praise; while Orangemcn and
other irreconcilable opponents of the leader
of her Majesty's Opposition can scarcely find
phrases stong enough to denote their antag-
onism to his plans. We shall hear much
more of this Irish question ere the ghost is
finally laid, it is greatly to be feared.

SATCRDAY saw the Conservative banner un.
furled anew in the hop county above a great

crowd of Constitutionalists assembled to,
celebrate.the stand taken by "solid Kent'
at the last General Election. Nineteen
M.P.'s, and never a follower of Mr. Gladstone
was the boast of the men of "Kent," and
there was much jubilation thereanent. The
event of the great Dartford gathering was,
however, the very important utterances of
the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who has
certainly the gift of moving with the times
in his political faith. He took quite a popu-
lar stand as to foreign affairs, seriously dis-
puting Russia's honesty, and claiming for
England the desire to see justice done in the
Balkan Peninsula. He looked with favour
on some popular movement for land reforms.
He held oat encouraging hopes of his Gov-
ermnent's ability to grapple with the diffi-
culties of the Irish question and set the
crooked paths straight without undue pre-
sure, and he gave many fair promises of in-
quiries into abuses in the public service and
elsewhere, which ought to lead ultimately to
an abolition of corruption whereever it is in
hiding. Altogether, Lord Randolph Church-
ill seems to have shaped his programme so
as to catch and bring to his aid all that is
surest and strongest in the party of progress,
without unduly outraging the fine old
crusted notions of the more cautious school
of Conservatives. That his lordship is a
clever statesman his political enemies will
admit ; but whether his so-far brilliant
public career will continue unchecked the
future has to show.

IN their own peculiar way, the terrible
new torpedo boats appear to be almost as big
failures and as unreliable as some of the
great guns which have of late been supplied
to the navy are admitted to be. The un-
wieldly heavy guns need "chase hooping"
ere they can be discharged with safety, and
now it is disclosed that the new Thorny-
crofts have to be deprived of one of their
five torpedo tubes in order to give them
sufficient buoyancy to make them
serviceable. Notwithstanding such con-
structive blundering the game of compensa-
tion for invention still goes merrily on at
the War Office, and yet neither the Service
nor the public are sensible of any increase of
confidence in our weapons of war. The poor
tax-payer settles all matters smoothly.

THE St. 11. lar'.in's summer which we have
just experienced is sufficiently remarkable
for a passing comment, for your average
Englishman attaches so much importance to
weather topics that he hardly ever meets a
friend without giving him meteorological
information. Only once within this last 46
years has the weather been as hot on the 4th
October as it was last Monday; and we had
fully 20 degrees more heat than on the same
date last year, Over 80 degrees in the
shade is certainly phenomenal in October in
these isles. If we could only reckon safely
on such an experience annually there would
be no fear of the practicability of tobacco-
culture in Britain in large quantity. Inci-
dents illustrative of the mildness of the sea-
son have not been wantinz. Bedding plants
are in many cases in the South of England
looking better at this moment than ever
previously during the season, and pretty
generally this year's annuals have seeded
and produced young plants by their side.
Down in the woods round about Ashford
—hard by which Kentish town, at Eastwell,
the Duke of Edinburgh had his stock sale
the other day—the primroses are out in fall
bloom as if it were May month, at least so
says a correspondent. Even more remark-
able is the report that a couple of early fruit-
ing apple trees in the same district, having
had their rest after bearing, beguiled by the
unwonted October heat, have burst again
into blossom. Perhaps ere these lines are in
the hands of the readers all will have been
changed, and cold winds and wet have taken
the place of warmth and cloudless sunshine.
Early morning frosts have already appeared,
a fortnight or more ago, and day i s so gradu-
ally giving way to night that we cannot long;
be deceived into imagining that the alman-
acks have all gone wrong.

THE Birmingham Midland Institute penny
lessons in science, literature, and all branches
of art are well wcrth the emulation of those
who would spread culture in our centres.
Lincoln and Aberdeen have copied the Mid-
land metropolis already, as far as penny
music goes, but the other and more useful
educational accomplishments might, we
think, with greater advantage be placed be-
fore all and sundry at the same modest cost
in every important town. The advantages
are obvious, and Birmingham has solved the
problem as to the cost. This penny culture
would have a considerably more permanent
value than the admirable penny readings
and later penny popular entertaimnents
which well meaning people have so success-
fully set up in some of our northern towns
in opposition to Vile public house "flee and
easy" and the low class music-hall. The
Birmingham plan of penny culture includes
advice and assistance to the poor in pro-
curing the indispensibles of study, and in-
deed does all that thought can do to foster
wholesome wstheticism among the lowly.
Doubtless the Midland Institute management
would willingly afford information as to its
method of working to all inquiries wishful
to spead the system, and we should be glad
indeed if this reference to the matter affords
a stimulus to cheap culture in any direction.