A Huge Dairy Farm.

Manawatu Herald, 15 March 1898, Page 3

A Huge Dairy Farm.

A series 0! illustrated articles on Coolangatta Farm, New South Wales described as the largest dairy farm in the world, has appeared in Country Life. The farm is part of the Berry estate of 70,000 acres, founded in 1882 by Mr Alexander Berry and his partner. Mr Wools tonecraft, who took up 10,000 acres in the the first instance, undertaking to ke%p and manage a hundred convicts by way of payment, and afterwards pur chasing 60,000 acres. So successful was the undertaking that in seventeen years the populatton of the estate numbered 3500. The estate now belong 3to "Dc Hay, and over 500 tenant-farmers are settled upon iv Soon after it oame into bis hand? the present proprietor decided to convert it, in effect, into one huge dairy farm, and there are now upon it a large central butter factory and thirteen oreameries, which separate the milk supplied by the surrounding farmers, and send the cream to the central factory, while the separated milk is taken back by the farmers. The number of cows milked is about 15,000, producing butter annually worth £100,000. The average re turn per cow is much higher than in the rest of New South Wales, a? the late Mr Berry paid great attention to the improvement of the breed of cowa on the estate. Of the 20.000 cwt of butter made last year, about half was sold locally, the rest being consigned to Messrs Weddel and Co., London, for pale in the United K'ngdom, where it has already acquired a high reputation for its excellence. At Ooolangatta, the home farm, Dr. Hay keeps nearly 500 cow?, and these are regularly tested, so that any producing less than 500 gallons of milk, 2001 bof butter per annum, may be weeded out. The latf st development of the enterprise is the establishment of a milk condensing faotory, capable of dealing with 2000 gallons of milk daily.