Young Farmers' Club

Five meetings were arranged for the Easter Term. At the first meeting, on the 26th January, we saw four films. The first, "Man-made rain", showed how crops can be improved with very little effort by the use of irrigation. The second film, "Mechanisation of livestock farming", showed how the tractor could be used to save time and labour. The third film, "Powder and shot", dealt with the manufacture of cartridges and the making of guns and their proofing. The final film, "Machines on the farm", showed modern agricultural machinery and new developments in farm mechanisation.

The second meeting consisted of a talk on "Arable farming" by Mr. Thomas and Mr. Hirst from the Askham Bryan College of Agriculture. Mr. Hirst spoke first dealing with the theoretical side of farming with examples taken from Askham Bryan. Mr. Thomas then explained the ways in which one could get the maximum profit from one's land. Mr. Hirst now spoke again telling us how to find out whether to use machinery or hand labour for most economic results.

At the third meeting of the term we heard a talk by Mr. Deacon on "Farming and progressive machinery". He told us how farms could be brought up to date by sealed storage forage crops and explained the principles on which they work. A film then showed how farming in America had advanced with the aid of silos. Mr. Deacon then passed round some grass which had been in a sealed storage silo and showed us some materials that were used in the silos.

At the fourth meeting of the term we showed a film because the speaker was unfortunately unable to attend. The film "Red sky at night" showed a year's work on a sheep farm in Perthshire. The tups are bought and released and lambing takes place in the autumn, the lambs then being vaccinated. In August the whole flock is rounded up and separated into lambs and ewes, they are then dipped and sheared, the lambs are then sold.

The final meeting took the form of three short talks by members of the Club. The first by G. W. A. Plews was on "Farming in Hong Kong" and showed the many problems facing them. The talk was illustrated by slides. The second talk was given by R. I. Pigg on "Hunting". He gave the general layout of the hunt and then explained the calls in the field, illustrated by a recording. The final talk was given by M. J. Fussey on "Point to Point" racing, saying that this was a valuable way of training horses for major racing.