The Dairy Industry.

Opunake Times, Volume II, Issue 98, 11 June 1895, Page 3

The Dairy Industry.

(N.Z. Times.) We have before us Messrs W. Weddell and Go’s London report, dated 19th April, 1895, on the Australasian dairy produce trade for the season 1894-96, with a chart of prices and quantities imported into the United Kingdom. It is the most elaborate and well compiled report of the kind we remember to have seen. It starts with the announcement that “ at the present time the best quality of French butter (fresh) in 21b rolls, 12 in a box, is selling in London at Is 2£d per lb wholesale, or about 5d per lb more than colonial.” As regards the sources of supply, the report states “ a study of the table shows that Denmark, Sweden,’Australia and New Zealand are the only countries which are regularly, year by year, sending increasing quantities. The yearly quantities received from Franco, United States and Canada are diminishing, while those from Holland and Germany are almost stationary.” The following are the quantities imported into the United Kingdom in 1894 from the Various countries, viz.:

Tons.’ Denmark 35,000 France 21,000 Sweden 18,000 Victoria 9,000 Holland 9,000 Germany 7,000 New Zealand ... 3,000 Unites States ... 2,000 Canada LOOO Other countries ... 9,000 Or a grand total of 129,000 tons of better, for which the United Kingdom paid nearly £14,000,000 sterling. In addition to which margarine was imported to the value qf more than £8,000,000 sterling. The top prices for colonial butter in London during the five months ending 30th March last averaged 102 s2d per cwt; the highest figures, 118 s, being reached in November and December, and the lowest, 84s, at the end of March. The fall in prices is accounted for in the following paragraph. BUTTER, The predominant feature of the past season is the extremely low range of prices which throughout has characterised the market for butter of all descriptions, and never since the Australasian colonies began to supply British markets with dairy produce have such abnormally low values prevailed. This remarkable fall in prices is due to the enormous crops of grass, hay and other fodder, which were so abundant all over Europe and the British Islands during the summer and autumn of 1894. It will be remembered that the previous summer (1893) was noted for a good drought, consequently the productive capacity of the land lay almost dormant. When the warm wet season of 1894 arrived, the ground gave forth its reserved fertility in the greatest crops of grass and other fodder that have been known for many years. The amount of hay from clover and artificial grasses secured in Great Britain in 1894 was nearly double that of the previous year, while that from permanent grass showed an even greater increase, the official estimated figures for Great Britain being an increase in clover hay of 1,530,000 tons, and in hay from permanent grass of 4,261,000 tons. A similar increase it is believed occurred in all the butter producing countries of the Continent of Europe, and it was mainly this augmentation of raw material, converted largely into dairy produce, which brought about the exceptional fall in prices’.