"VAST DAIRY FARM"

Shannon News, 27 July 1928, Page 3

"VAST DAIRY FARM"

PASTURES OF NORTH ISLAND,

TRIBUTE FROM AUSTRALIAN.

"There is ,ho doubt- some of the dairy "factories arc the last word in modern equipment and size," said Mr , J. Proud, manager of the Camberdown Co-operative Dairy Company, Victoria, and president of the Federal Factory Managers' Association, oil arriving in Auckland from the Waikato last Monday. He. has just completed a tour of the North Island, in company with three other members of the delegation of Australian dairy factory managers. .Mr Proud said that the delegation lmd completed a tour which had been very interesting and exceptionally instructive. More than anything else they had been impressed with the great strides dairy farmers had mads toward the improvement. of herds effective testing and the successful cftl-'. tivation of suitably pastures by scientific top-dressing. To them it appeared that there stretched almost from Palmerston North to- Auckland, a great area of country, remarkable in its but-ter-fat producing capacity. There were in Australia areas equally as rich, but it would be hard to find throughout the, anything comparable /to •"the one vast dairy farm which the jESTorth Island seemed at present.' Rich .pastures and fine herus were met with, 'on every side •', and the visitors had been struck with the advanced methods employed by oven the smallest farmer. Within fixe past three days Mr Proud said he and his-companions had passed y-throjugh what was undoubtedly the fincountry they had seen in : New Zealand. The New Zealand Dairy Company's factory at Waharoa had "provided an interesting insight into the scientific methods which undoubtedly lay at the root of the Dominion 's progress in primary industry. Mr Proud also paid a tribute to the New Zealand Co-operative Dairy Company 's factory at Morrinsville, _ which, although not the largest,, was one" of the best equipped they had visited. The system of calf-marking, which was carried out extensively in New Zealand, but only among stud stock in Australia, Mr Proud considered invalu'able in iniproving herds. . It would be the endeavour of the delegation to point out to Australian dairy farmers, through the factory managers, the improvements that would inevitably accrue through wider application of those methods in general use in New Zcawas faced with considerable difficulties., chief among which was the extreme . dryness of his pastures over long periods. Therefore he would have to pay more attention to pasture cultivation, .which would then form an effective foundation for increased production.