102 Journal op the Department of Agriculture. 



diversity in its cost of production, and one figure, or even average of 

 figures, cannot adequately represent the cost in all districts and under 

 all conditions. 



Tlie investigation is also revealing the num})er of remarkably 

 good farmers there are in the country, who would compare favourablv 

 with those of any country in the world. Some of these, starting with 

 little or nothing, have within twenty years, by dint of energy, intelli- 

 gence, and liard work, become well-to-do and influential members of 

 the community, and are to-day by their example exerting a most 

 beneficial influence on the farming in their districts. 



Everywhere the difiioulty of obtaining f-ufficient satisfactory 

 labour prevails, and the effect of this on maize production has been 

 apparent. In many cases farmers are not planting as much as their 

 land and equipment entitle them to do by reason of their inability to 

 obtain labour. And it is not entirely a question of pay and system 

 of hire and treatment of their native labourers. A few farmers have set 

 themselves against the principle of part-payment in kind and hire 

 only cash-paid labourers, and they, even though paying £3 and pro- 

 viding half a muid of meal per month, find difficulty in obtaining 

 sufficient, while the farmer who pays only from 15s. to 25s. per 

 month in cash and provides land for cultivation — and often the culti- 

 vation itself — and grazing for ten or twenty cattle, and maybe twenty 

 or thirty sheep for each native, has also many complaints to make of 

 the unsatisfactory labour supply. The system of contracting the land 

 to natives or whites in return for part of the crop is not likely to 

 disappear while these difficulties remain. 



Some points of economic importance are being made evident. 

 Many farmers have farms larger than they can work or have 

 suificient capital to work, and thus have spare grazing land. This 

 land is frequently not fully stocked or is stocked with cattle owned by 

 natives. In either case the cost of production on the land under crop 

 is higher than it ought to be owing to the high cost of rent or interest 

 on capital and of ox labour. Other farmers again with insufficient 

 capital at their command, and only able to cultivate a comparatively 

 small acreage, have their crops burdened with a high management 

 charge per acre and per bag;, in some cases as high as 6s. per bag, 

 even when the salary is placed at the lowest cost of living figure. 



Some interesting and valuable farm practices have been observed. 

 In one district kraal manure is powdered and drilled in with the 

 seed. In another, a farmer of a mechanical turn of mind has adapted 

 two cultivators into one, and has thus produced a machine whereby 

 two rows of maize can be cultivated instead of one. This implement, 

 which is set to the two-planter rows, is similar in principle to the 

 horse-hoe used in other parts of the world, in which the hoes are set 

 to correspond to the drill rows, and whereby the risk of cutting up 

 the plants is reduced, the task of manipulation of the implement 

 lightened, and the amount of work performed increased. Other 

 farmers again save time in the planting season — when it is all 

 important — by attaching one section of a harrow to their double- 

 furrow ploughs. Others again, it is gratifying to note, are learning 

 to appreciate the value of cow-peas, both to their land and to their 

 stock, and are planting them with the last cultivation of their maize, 

 thereby improving, in their own words, the value of the after-grazing 

 to a threefold extent. 



