The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. TUESDAY, MAY 19, 1914. PIG FARMING.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIX, Issue 23, 19 May 1914, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. TUESDAY, MAY 19, 1914. PIG FARMING.

Recently, and not without good reason, the “Taranaki Herald’’ directed attention to the neglect of the profitable pig-rearing industry in Taranaki, and urge upon farmers generally the desirability of adding pig-breeding as a side line to their business. The “Herald,” following up the matter, points out that there is much to be learned from those progressive dairymen, the Danes, in this respect. They are New Zealand’s chief rivals in the English butter market; they are the only people who can beat us in a large way; therefore their methods are worth studying, Mr Frederic C. Howe, writing in the “Metropolitan,” gives some interesting particulars of their small farm industries. Out of a total of 2-18,000 farms in Denmark 133,000 are of less than 131 acres in extent, while only 8000 are more than 150 acres. There are 68,000 “farms” which average less than half an acre each, held by men who work their own little places and are employed on the estates of the large farmers. Mr Howe found that a man on live acres j made a very decent living for himself j and his family. How did he do this!"j By milking a few cows, keeping a dozen or more pigs, growing vege-j tables and exporting eggs and poultry along with his richer neighbour. One cause of the good results is that nearly every main—B9 per cent, in fact—owns his farm. A second explanation is that the people are all educated for their particular needs and they have co-operation everywhere. It started with butter and cheese, and here the Danes were not a long way ahead of Taranaki in adopting tin* co-operative factory system, for prior to 1881 each

farmer made his own butter and mark-] eted it, just as Taranaki farmers didj at that time. The bacon business was a by-product of the co-operative dairy.; The skim milk was a loss, so they be-, gan to feed it to hogs, and soon they found that private slaughtering of the latter was costly and unsatisfactory. So the peasants organised co-opera-tive societies and built their own! slaughter-houses. To-day there are 105,000 members of the co-operative slaughter-houses in the country, which • kill each year 1,500,000 hogs, representing a value of over £5,000,000. There are thirty-six slaughter-houses with a capital of about £470,000. The Government sent out experts, who travelled from village to village to instruct the farmers as to the kind of hogs to raise and the best way to slaughter them. Then it was found that a trust had been formed in London which controlled the market and paid the farmers whatever price it chose to fix for their bacon. So the peasants formed a trust of their own, called the Danish Bacon Company of London, which put the private trust out of business. Year by year the peasants have extended their grip until their transactions amount to many millions annually. In thirty years the export trade of Denmark in farm products has increased 600 per cent., while the standard of living of the people has been raised to a higher level than that of almost any country in Europe. Here in Taranaki we certainly ought to do better with the pig industry.