DAIRY FARMING IN ENGLAND.

Patea Mail, 18 June 1881, Page 4

DAIRY FARMING IN ENGLAND.

The Liverpool Mercury says:-r-A thought casually thrown out by Mr Gladstone some time ago has taken root in the necessities of the times, and may eventually fructify into a sweeping change in the conditions under which, farming in Great Britain has hitherto, been carried on. Agriculture is no longer a paying occupation. It is impoverishing landlords as well as tenants. The home markets is glutted with foreign produce. We get milk from Holland, cheese, butter, bacon, and beef from America, and potatoes from Germany and Denmark. As for wheat, probably more than two-thirds of the supply comes from the United States, the Black Sea, and the Baltic; while for many descriptions of garden produce we are largely dependent npoib France There is something wrong about all this Fanning seems to prosper everywhere except in this country. In America the annual dairy produce is estimated at £60,000,000; while in France and Holland it is proportionately higher. We have good land, prime cattle, the best of implements, and every other requisite for growing produce and raising food ; but year after year our farmers are falling more and more into the rear, afid land-owners are compelled to make large remissions of rent in order that tenants may keep their heads above water. Several years ago Mr Gladstone declared that the conditions of English farming were being rapidly changed by foreign competition, and that if onr agriculturists wished to hold their own they would have to grow more garden produce and less wheat, and attend more closely to dairy work and the breeding, of stock. This is exactly the view has lately forced itself upon the attention of the landowning as well as the farming class, and a joint effort is to ,be l made to put it into operation. Great landowners are lending their countenance to a scheme which aims at a great extension of dairy farming. The proposal is to form a company for the establishment of a school and farm whereat instruction in all matters connected with dairy stock and dairy work can be obtained. An estate from 1000 to 2000 acres is to be purchased In one of the southern counties, and converted into what will be practically a college for farming, especially as regards dairy work. The important position which the latter must in future occupy in this country is fully recognised by the promoters of the scheme. They see that in the breeding of cattle and the production of good milk, butter, and cheese English farmers may have profitable occupation. The company have issued their prospectus privately, for it is understood that a large sum of money towards the carrying out of the scheme has been raised. They have a great work before them —that of lifting English, farming out of the depression into new and more profitable courses.