DAIRY FARMING IN ENGLAND.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume V, Issue 510, 3 June 1881, Page 2

DAIRY FARMING IN ENGLAND.

In connection with Mr Bowron's recom mendation to our settlers to form a cheese factory, the following remarks, which we extract from the Liverpool Mercury, may not be uninteresting. It will be remembered that Mr Bowion laid stress on the educational value which would be possessed by such an institution. Precisely the same idea appears to impressed itself on tho ag'ri"illturn 1 classes at Home. This is what the Mercury says : —

A thought casually thrown out by Mr. Gladstone some time ago has taken root in the necessities of the times, and may eventually fructify into a sweeping change in the conditions under which farming in this country has hitherto been carried on. Agriculture is no longer a paying occupation. It is impoverishing landlords as well as tenants. J- The home, .is glutted with foregin produce. ;:We milk .from Holland, cheese, butter, bacon, .and* beef from America, and potatoes from Germany and Denmark. As for 'wheat, probably more than two-thirds of the supply comes from the United States, the Black Sea, and the Baltic ; while for many descriptions of garden produce we are largely dependent upon' France. There is something wrong about all this. Fanning seems to prosper everywhere except in this country. In America the annual dairy produce is estimated at £60,000,000 ; while in France and Holland it is proportionately higher. We have good land, prime cattle, tho best of imp! 'iiK-nta, and every other requisite for growing produce and raising food ; but year after year our farmers are falling more and more into the rear, and landowners are compelled to' make large remissions of rents in order that tenants may keep their heads above water. Several years ago Mr. Gladstone declared that the "conditions of Eng'ish farming were being rapidly changed by foregin competition, aud that if our agriculturists wished to hold thoir own they would have to grow more garden pro.luce and less wheat, and attend mo>e closidy to dairy work and the breeding of stock. This is exactly the view that has lately forced itself upon the attention of the landowning as well as the farming class, and a joint, effort is to be made to put it into operation. The Duke of Westminster, The Duke of Buccleuch, the Duke of Sutherhud, the Duke of Richmond, the Earl of Lathom. Sir Watkin Widiams-Wynn, tho Hon. Wilbraham Kgertoti, M.P., Mr. Thomas Brassey, M.Pj, and other trroat landowners, are lending their countenance to a scheme which aims at a great extension of dairy farming in this country. The proposal is to form a company for the establishment of a school and farm whereat instruction in ad matters connected with dai.ty f tock and dairy work can be obtained. An .estate of from 1000 to 2000 acres is to bo purchased in one of the southern counties, and converted into what will be practically a college for farming, especially as regards da ry work. The important position which the latter must in future 0.-cupy in this country is fully recognised by tho promoters of the scheme. They see that in the breeding of cattle and the production of good milk, butter, aad cheese English farmers may have pioiitabie occupation. The company have issued th ir prospectus privately, for it is undestood that a large sum of money towards the carrying out of tho scheme has been raised. They have a great work before them—that of lifting English farming out of the depression into new and more profitable courses.