PRODUCTIVE TARANAKI,

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 864, 9 July 1910, Page 8

PRODUCTIVE TARANAKI,

. THE GROWTH OF DAIRYING. Just after the down of the "forties," the white pioneers of Taranaki disembarked a't Nnw Plymouth. At that time thore were few'indications that 'tho bush-clad area around Mount Kgmonfe would become one of'tho most prosperous dairying states iu the world. The hardships entailed in the removing of that cloak of verdure are not lully realised to-day. The man of 1910 puts ill concrete cowyarcls, hygeinic cowsheds, and milking-machines, and talks •of improvements and up-to-dateness. His iueas are lauditblu, but sometimes ■ —generally, when he happens to be a man who is new to the province—lie forgets that he has started where the -pioneer halted. However,- most of tlio . pioneers wero monetarily ; . successful. J!'or years very little progress of a "showy" nature was made, but the change from forest to pasture was ceaseless, and belorc tho utilitarian axe of the settler was evolved a province so promising that it was called the garden, of iNew Zealand. 11l these days of butter bringing in the vicinity of a shilling a pound, some' jnay he surprised to near that there was a time when the Taranaki buttermakers did nol get fourpence a pound for their manufactures.- Even if the , .price was uomifcal'y fourpence, they did not get that' amount in cash; they liad to take il; out in'groceries. .The iaimers' wife was usually the buttarmaker, and tho \yhole of her factory appliances could always be stowed inside the" then inevitable, hand-churn. The fanner was his .own butter distributor, und he arrived in town every few days with his dairy produce carefully covered witn cabbage leaves. , The forerunner* of ihe co-oper; factories were the Crown Company. The . Crown Company had factories in many parts of the province, and ill those, earlier days must have had an cnoi mous interest in- the 'industry. WilJi fthe advent of the co-operative system ( tha . receiving depots 'of the company began .to'disappear, and now very few . of the old buildings can be seen. With the wholesale adoption of co-operation the.rate of progress was greatly accelerated, and- with expansion and competition came improvement'.!. The establishment of valuable business • connec- ; tioris' in England wa3 another stimulant to the industry. Statistical information is sometimes a difficult matter to treat interestingly,, but* in tho case of Taranaki the figures nr« a<i striking that Uicy are not' 111 the least "dry." There are, about a million and a quarter acres of land in occupation in 1 tlie province, out of a total of about 38 million acres occupied in the' Dominion. The proportion under cultivation is much in favour of Tarajialu, which has about a million acres thus., occupied, wliile tho total for the Dominion is not quite 1(5,000,000 acres. The holdings in Taranaki average about ■ • 165;, acres, and for the whole of-'New ZeaJand over 200 -acres. . Taranaki has ;o ( ver 36,000 acres under-crops and 200 acres fallow land. " Over a million acres are' in grass—there are 188,000 acres of sown grass on.ploughed-land, 758,000 acres "of, sown grass on unploughed' land, and 264,000 acres of native grasses. Oats are the popular grain, representing/9200 seres of the ,12,100 ;«ciej used lor gram Propottionately the province grows more mangolds than any other part of the J)o-.. JniAiotf, and 24,000' acres of its area is , occupied in green crops. Not a great deal of fruit-growing is done,' but about ll'tingareliu, Rahatu, and New Plymoul.h • . there are some excellent orchards.' The cattle total 260,000, of which 134,000' are cows' and' heifers"used for dairying. There are over 6000 cows and 3800 heifers kept for' breeding purposes. - ... • - '■ The most interesting tables concern-, ing Taranaki are those, recording its exports. The province leads in the exportation of dairy produce. According to the Government statistics in the annual of 1909,' which:is the latest compilation available, the exports of but- ,. -ter from Taranaki that year wero valued at £480,196, which was more than forty per cent, of- the Dominion output. In the samo year the cheese seni away 'from the-province totalled £391,153, ■which was well over half the cheese output , of, the Dominion,- which amounted to £765,395.' The dairy produce (butter and cheese) exported from i ' wl® whole of New Zealand was worth £1,911,409, of which Taranaki's share iw-as £871,349. The quantities of its two. chief products exported were: i- Cheese, 139,740 cwt.; butter, 96,460 cwt. In 1904 the value of the- province's cheese export was only £72,848, of which £40,406 worth went through ' New Plymouth and . Waitara, and £32,442 worth through' Patea. Summing up -Tai-anaki's' productiveness, shows that from about a million, acres of land comes nearly, half our exports, besides frozen mutton £29,000, frozen beef £155,000, wool £73,402, and other items. ■There are over 800 factories and ereameries in -the province. There is still room for a good deal of expansion in the industry, and some fine land is ; being opened up by the Stratford- ' Ongarue railway. •