THE DAIRY INDUSTRY IN U.S.A.

Matamata Record, Volume II, Issue 100, 3 October 1918, Page 2

THE DAIRY INDUSTRY IN U.S.A.

Decline of Butte** and Cheese Exports. The dried milking question is of great interest to the farmers-of this and surrounding districts. The last number of the American Exporters and Importers Journal contains a very interesting article on the dairy industry in the United States. The Journal states: " The American cow, like everything else American, is doing her bit toward the successful prosecution of the world's war. She has contributed more than one hundred million dollars to the exports of the United States during the last fiscal year, nearly all of it going to the boys in the trenches, chiefly in the form of condensed milk. The stated value of the condensed milk thus exported aggregates for the fiscal year, 1918, about 70,000,000 dollars, and adding the other contribution of the cow, butter and cheese, the total value which she has contributed to our exports, including supplies sent by the Government, will aggregate in round terms, 100,000,000 dollars as compared with 50,000,000 dollars in 1917, 25,000,000 dollars in 1916, 13,000,000 dollars in 1915 and less than 3,000,000 dollars in 1914. Thus the contributions of the American cow to the export trade of the United States have jumped from less than 3,000,000 dollars in the fiscal year preceding the war, to 100,000,000 dollars last year. The figures are necessarily in round terms especially for last year,||for which the record is not yet complete. The bulk of this large and rapidly increasing exportation of dairy products goes to the armies of the Allies, including that of the United States. Of the 400,000,000 pounds of condensed and evaporated milk exported in the nine months ending with March, 178,000,000 pounds went to Great Britain, whence it was presumably passed to the men on the battlefields ; 70,000,000 pounds direct to France; 17,000,000 to Belgium; 11,000,000 to the Netherlands; 20,000,000 to Cuha; 10,000,000 to the Philippines; 10,000,000 to China and Japan, and 10,000,000 to British South Africa. Butter and cheese exports in the fiscal year 1918 show a marked decline, when compared with 1917, while condensed milk, on the contrary, shows a marked increase. The quantity of butter exported during the nine months available for analysis, ending with March, was but 12,000,000 pounds as against 25,000,000 in the "same months of 1917, and the cheese 12,000.000 as against 43,000,000 the previous year. But of condensed and evaporated milk, the quantity in the nine months ending with March was 401,000,000 pounds, as compared with 166,000,000 pounds in the same months of 1917, and 90,000,000 pounds 1916.