CITY’S MILK SUPPLY

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 98, 19 January 1935, Page 6

CITY’S MILK SUPPLY

Effect of Long Spell of Dry Weather DIMINISHING SURPLUS Usually at this time of the year most of the farmers who supply the Wellington municipality with milk have a surplus over and above the demands made upon them by the city. Owing to the abnormally dry hot season for eight weeks past the pastures are as brown and moistureless as they might be at the end of February or early in March, and milk production is gradually diminishing. The milk department of the City Council draws its supplies from the Hutt Valley as far up as Mangaroa (in the foothills of the Rimutakas), and on the west coast as far north as the Otaki district. At present the supply from the Hutt Valley, except that produced by vending nearby farmers, is being absorbed. Surplus milk produced at Mangaroa normally finds its way to the farmers’ cheese factory there, but such is the diminution in output that the factory has closed down, and the milk from that district is being forwarded to the city. The country between Paekakariki and Otaki lias not escaped the drought, and there again the average production is falling steadily. In this district in normal conditions the surplus goes to the City Corporation’s butter factory at Rahui (Otaki), but operations there have already had to be slackened owing to the diminished supply from that usually fertile countryside.

Roughly speaking the dry spell of this summer has developed a month before its time, and the pastures throughout the province reflect it. When the inquiry was made as to whether nearby farmers were still being supplied with milk by the municipality, it was stated that about 500 gallons a day was being sold to these independent vendors. If the shortage in supplies became serious that business would be the first to be curtailed.