Returns from Butter Fat.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 24 February 1914, Page 4

Returns from Butter Fat.

A fou' particiilats "1 what lviiakura is doius: in two i>f urn' loading agricultural industries, slieept'arming and dairying. Last year the returns from butter-fat from the herd of Jerseys kept at Ruakuni was i'lii ISs jicr acre ; from the herd of shorthorns it averaged £17 2s per acre. the bull calves from the ,Jerseys sold at an average of £40 each. The heifers were kept, but if their avora' r e value was only estimated at £10, it is easy t" sre that without reckoning on the value of skim milk the returns per acre were nearer i'oO than £20, bocause it if- only taking about an acre of land at Uuakura to ke'np a cow, and very much less to keep a calf for a year. The value of Shorthorn calves averaged about £17 all round, so that calves and butterfat alone yielded £o4 2s or thereabouts for very little more than an acre. It is not likely, of course, that ordinary farmers to-day would get anything noar the values just mentioned for their calves, but whin our farmers lift thoir horcls to the same butter-fat capacity of those at Ruakura, and this |is well within reasonable limits, [ believe ovory calf from such herds will lie well worth the values just quoted. It is'not likely that ordinary farms to-day would carry anything noar a cow to the acre, but 1 am absolutely sure that with very littlo trouble and expense the way of top-dressing pastures, and growing roots and crops, every farm on I arable land in the Auckland province could be easily made to do so. Dairy farming is not carried on at Ruakura on lines impossible elsewhere, but on lines which every farmer can I follow, providing that ho has enough capital to work his laud even up to a : very moderate state of production.