FOOD WASTAGE
Snt,—Mr. Seeley says that the statements of myself and Sir William Beach Thomas are not supported by facts. I am afraid his are equally unsupported.
He says that now practically every grain has been knocked out. I am glad this is so in Lincolnshire. Here we have been less fortunate, and in spite of the best efforts of our War Agricultural-Committee and the threshing contractors, threshing is only just finished and the loss by mice has been very great. Mice do much more damage than rats in ricks, where they arc numerous. and after February they begin to increase very fast indeed, and the damage they do is very considerable. If anyone will compare his yields per acre from ricks threshed shortly after harvest and ricks left till April, he will have no doubt on that score. When my son went into a farm I gave him one piece of advice, " Thresh out every grain of corn you have as soon after harvest as you can. I have often had to hold till the spring, and invariably lost money by it." This is where a man who is in a big enough way to own his own threshing-set scores.
I cannot think where the idea arose that if there are many mice in a rick there are no rats, and vice versa. It is absolutely untrue. I can only think it arose like this. If yam, have to keep a rick till May, you will find few rats and many mice, not because the rats have not been there, but because as soon as the weather gets a bit warm the rats all move out into the hedgerows and the mice stay in the rick. Every farmer knows this. The migration takes place about April. If you thresh in February or March you will find a difference, both rats and mice in the rick.
Perhaps I may be allowed to tell a story of how mice can increase in a rick. Some years ago I was threshing oat ricks during the Easter school holidays, and I agreed with the school children to come and kill the mice at a penny a dozen. The score averaged goo mice per rick, or 2,7oo in the three ricks. I have just threshed two oat ricks because I could not get the tackle before. The sheaves were all bitten to pieces by the mice. I wish Mr. Seeley would tell us the secret of how to get oat ricks " dressed " against mice. I've always heard it could be done, but never found anyone who could do it yet in 40 years' farming. May I disillusion Mr. Seeley on two personal points:
t. He suggests my ricks were not threshed out because the ricks were ungetatable. May I inform him you can get into any field of my farm
off the hard high road, and the ricks are always built just inside the gates? 2. He seems to suggest that I have not yet paid my last year's threshing bill. May I assure him that this is not the case, and the suggestion has caused a good deal of amusement to both myself and my friends. As a matter of fact, I pay the threshing bill monthly, and, being a careful soul, am allowed to deduct 5 per cent. for cash.
But, seriously, he has got hold of one goOd point. The way some farmers keep the threshing-tackle owner waiting for his money is a
disgrace, for the cash is there for that from the sale of the corn. But I blame the threshing contractors a little. If they refused to thresh a man's corn one year unless and until he had paid his last year's bill the situation would soon right itself. Indeed, I would go further and say no further threshing until the work done on the previous visit had been paid for. If the War Agricultural Committees would introduce this rule it would, after the first wailing, be a benefit all round. But one thing is clear ; if we are to grow more corn, and we must, then we must
Previous page
