DAIRY SUPERIORITY

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 926, 20 March 1930, Page 10

DAIRY SUPERIORITY

N.Z. HAS LITTLE TO LEARN FROM EUROPE TOUR OF INVESTIGATION From Our Resident Reporter WELLINGTON, Today. : That New Zealand has litle to learn j from England or Europe about dairy ; production and the treatment of grass- i ; lands is the opinion of Dr. H. E. j ! Annett, of Matangi, Waikato, who re- i ; turned yesterday by the Rangitiki ! after a long tour abroad investigating farming conditions, the treatment of | soils, and dairy production methods. ; The Dominion’s advantages in dairying compared with England and the | Continent arose from three chief j causes. "We have a climate in which I we can grow grass practically all the year round,” Dr. Annett proceeded. *lt j is not necessary to grow root crops, j nor to buy any concentrated food. We 1 can also keep our cattle out of doors | the whole year. This eliminates the ; necesity of erecting buildings to house 1 stock. The cost of food purchased by j farmers in England and on the Con- ! tinent represents a very large propori tion of their cost of production. I visited farms in Holland and Germany where farmers owning from 140 to 150 acres were spending in the vicinity of £ 300 a year on concentrated foods alone. GREAT ECONOMY “Another important point is that there is no other country so far advanced in the use of milking machines as in New Zealand. The type of machine used here results in great economy of labour. Two men in New Zealand can milk GO cows, but in England I found that six men were needed to milk G 5 cows with the type of machine used there. “Although we hear wonderful things Denmark has done in co-operative methods, I think New Zealand is even more wonderful in her co-operative development. We have a very fine' system, and it has been built up almost entirely since the war. Because of this co-operative spirit throughout the Dominion, I think farmers have a more progressive outlook. They will adopt a new principle where a British farmer would not take to it to anything like the same extent.

“At the same time, New Zealand farmers will have to look into their marketing. There are certain complaints in England that dairy produce landed in London from the Dominion in the off season is below quality. It is said that this arises because butter placed on the market in, say, September, October, and November, is probably made six or eight months previously. I think that probably some system of dating imported butter boxes would to at least a temporary improvement. What we Will ultimately have to develop in New Zealand is all-the-year-round milking, so that we can place produce on the market during all months of the year, in more or less even quantities. “New Zealand farmers would have to pay further attention to the treatment of grasslands and soil,” Dr. Annett added. “They have been using superphosphate entirely in the past, and they have reached the stage where, having taken so much out of the land, they have to consider more systematic manuring. The deficiency of lime in soils results in the production of grass with a low lime content. Since the New Zealand dairy animal gets practically no feed except grass, the production of grass with a high lime content is of very great importance. “Similar considerations app}y to potash in soils. In future New Zealand will have to turn her attention to a greater use of lime, and probably also of potash manuring. With the increase in the knowledge of results obtained in experimental work with sulphate of ammonia, it is likely that the use of this substance combined with superphosphate and lime will bring about a very much bigger production in agricultural products.”

COLOMBO TEA COLOMBO, Tuesday. At this week’s tea auction in Colombo 2,500,0001 b were catalogued. The quality was the same as last week’s offerings. Common teas advanced three to five cents. Others were irregular. The total to be offered next week is 2,G00,0001b.