DocoiiibtT, iyl3 



THE (iAKDEM AND FIELD. 



381 



Frenzied Pii\ai\ce. 



There was once u Ixuik publishcil 

 under the above title, it dealt 

 with money makiu}; in America. 

 This jiaraj^raph is about money 

 losin;^- in Australia. The American 

 millionaires appeared to be goini; 

 pretty strong in the momoy making 

 line, the South Australian Dept. 

 of AgricultuTC, at all events in con- 

 nection with the poultry section, 

 seem to be proceeding with equal 

 vigour, but in the opposite direc- 

 tion. Have you noticed the fi. 

 gures " Hardshell," ol the Even- 

 ing Journal, published the other 

 day ? Thev were big enough not 

 to want much looking for. Loss, 

 £2,221 13/11. Not bad to begin 

 with, add £300 interest on the 

 £7,000 odd invested and you have 

 £•2,500, and that's onlv one year's 

 interest, apparently the loss and 

 the interest have been accumiulat- 

 ing, sort of unbeknownst. An or- 

 dinary hen (we quote the same 

 authority) is expected to make 4/ 

 a year profit, so she must have 

 done some pretty violent back ped- 

 aling at the stations. "What about 

 fpanzied finance up-to-date," we 

 asked a poultryman the other day? 

 " Don't know about frenzied," he 

 replied, " but I call it d — rotten 

 unless there are some pretty solid 

 results." 



— The Results. — 



It is difhcidt to estimate the 

 good that has been done to poultry 

 breeding in the last few years or 

 the direct return in freight, etc., 

 to the State. There has been, we 

 have been told and believe, a great 

 expansion of the industry and con- 

 sequent increase in business and 

 money turned over, though we 

 should be more convmced of the 

 said expansion if it was reflected 

 in the export figures. So far so 



Eqqs! Eqqs! 



Sittings from Heavy Laying 



White Leghorns 

 Black Leghorns 

 Black Orpingtons 

 SilverWyandottes 



15 Eggs to each setting. Guaranteed 

 fertile or replaced. 10/6 per setting 



T. E. YELLAND, 

 S.A. Fanaen' Co-Op. Union, Ltd. 



good, but what l)rc)n};ht thcsfe re- 

 sults. Was it the competitions and 

 the price ol eggs ? Certainly it 

 was. Now the competitions in 

 some mjsterious way, lost £150 

 last year over receipts. If you put 

 it at £500 or £1,000 for the full 

 term that ought to cover the total 

 competition cost. 



Roseworthy apparently lost last 

 year £47 9/9 out of a total of 

 £434 9/1. What did they get for 

 the balance ? If Kyl)ybolitte lost 

 £280 on 2 years' competitions what 

 did the Department get for the 

 balance £450. 



Why pay £2,500 for what you can 

 get for £500 ot £i,(xx). That cer- 

 tainly would be frenzied finance. 

 What would be thought of a man 

 who paid £'5 5/ for a sitting of 

 eggs he could get for £1 i/. Just 

 one thing, \iz., that there were still 

 some mugs about. Unless ouir suc- 

 cessive Ministers of Agriculture 

 happen to have been of them and 

 there is, of course, no evidence of 

 the fact, but rather the reverse, 

 they did not pay that money for 

 something they had got for much 

 less. What did they pay it for ? 

 Might we suggest putting the full 

 strength of the Department on an 

 explanatory Bulletin which might 

 be entitled X-L S D., or How we 

 Elewed that Boodle. Vulgar, but it 

 would be more practical and in- 

 structive than say a brochure on 

 " The Critical Revision of the 

 Structural Phenomena of Egg 

 Shells," for which we notice a 

 considerable amount of information 

 has accumulated. £1,000 or £2,000 

 or £7,000 or £10,000, are, definite 

 facts, and when expended should 

 have an equally definite result. 



— Experimental Work. — 



We have seen it stated that the 

 money was spent on experimental 

 work. Well and good. We have 

 a very hearty appreciation of its 

 value. Experimental work is not, 

 as we understand it, a vague and 

 nebulous proposition, on the con- 

 trary it is something which sets 

 out to prove or disprove a theory 

 or emphasize a fact. It has a de- 

 finite purpose, a definite method 

 and a definite or indefinite result. 

 Whichever it is, it is capable of ex- 

 pression on paper. It does not 

 necessarily follow that it is direct- 

 ly profitable. Much experimental 

 work is of course unprofitable 

 though indirectly profitable. We 

 cannot conceive that practical 

 poultry experimental work is of 



neces.sity unprofitable. Whatever 

 experiment you are conducting 

 with a rooster (unless with an axe) 

 it continues to grow llesh and 

 when the experiment is over, can 

 at least be sold to cover approxi- 

 mately its food cost. Whatever 

 experiment you are conducting 

 with a pullet, she will by the time 

 the experiment is over, have laid 

 to the value of from i/- to lo/- 

 over cost of food, depending on the 

 length of the experiment. 



— A Theory. — 



We ha\e thought the matter over 

 carefully and the only solution 

 we can come to is that someone 

 ijropounded the theory to the Min- 

 ister or Professor Lowrie, or who- 

 ever may be responsible for the 

 the experiment work, said to have 

 been accomplished, that roosters 

 could be made to lay eggs. With 

 their natural enthusiasm for any- 

 thing which might assist the agri- 

 cultural interest, they would doubt- 

 less see its possibilities from the 

 farmer's point of view, indeed from 

 everybody's point of view. That is 

 our theory, but even supposing this 

 to have been the basis of the ex- 

 perimental work it will be ad- 

 mitted that it took a lot of roos- 

 ters to eat that money. Whilst not 

 criticising such a scheme in toto, 

 we would suggest that a far small- 

 er number, say, twelve roosters, 

 would hav<e been enough to begin 

 with, and there would have re- 

 mained a considerable amount to 

 be expended for other purposes. 

 Had such a preliminary experiment 

 shown promising results it could of 

 course been continued on a larger 

 scale. 



— The Profitable Hen. — 



The ordinary common, profitable 

 hen exists, there is no doubt of it, 

 the man in the streets knows it, 

 the farmer knows it, the commier- 

 cial man knows it, the suburban 

 man knows it, " Hardshell " ap- 

 pa'rently knows it, but what we 

 cannot understand is how the Agri- 

 cultural Department comes to 

 know it — except by hearsay. We do 

 not remember to have read a defi- 

 nite official statement that the hen 

 was profitable, but we have cer- 

 tainly gathered the impression that 

 in a general sort of \va.y she had 

 earned the cordial appiroval of the 

 said Department as a farm, subur- 

 ban and commercial asset. That 

 the Department has not arisen in 

 just wrath and cursed a bird 

 which has so invariably and so 

 markedfy " turned dog " on it, 

 .speaks volumes for its patience, 

 courtesy and good feeling. From 

 north, south, east and west the 



