DAIRYING IN TARANAKI.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 90, 12 May 1909, Page 3

DAIRYING IN TARANAKI.

THE INDUSTRY BOOMING. The receipts from dairying in Taranaki this season prove the big money ia milk production when the business is conducted 011 sound lines, and indicates that even when lower prices rule for butter and cheese it will .still be a highly profitable occupation should the standard of the stock be raised and abundant food supplied them at all seasons' of the year, Two striking cases of the big returns from dairying have just been supplied the writer. In one case A. Peters, of Ma'tapu, received £217 for the milk of 1-/ cows last month. The herd is machine-milked. The return is based on a payment of 11'/id for butter-fat. In the other case an old man (sixty-fire years of age) and hi h daughter have taken in three years £072 off 32 acres' for milk alone. The average for butterfat (they are supplying the Kaupokonui cheese factory) has been about ll'/s'l. A proof that this is a genuine return is contained in the fact that the owner •of the property lias just been offered by the lessee £3 an acre rent, the lease about to fall in. but the owner, apparently not satisfied with this offer, is putting the little farm up to public tender.

At the present time ,t2 5s to ,C2 10s an acre rent is being paid for dairying land in the rich territory lying between Hanvera a.id Kaupokonui, and this' price, it is declared, is not an extravagant one, considering what the land will do. Three veal's ago .a Wellington constable took up a leasehold farm on the Mannia road at £2 an acre, and so successful has his milking venture proved that he has now persuaded bis. brother, also a Wellington constable, to take up another leasehold farm in the locality. This man is paying £1 17s an anv rent for 77 acres, tile lease being for seven years.

Jlilk production never presented such excellent pro-peels in Taranaki as it does at the present moment. The weather now i» phenomenal.- more like spring than winter, and there"are gooil stocks of root s and bay 011 hand, in view of bad weather later on, especially a harsh Augii>'[, the month dreaded' by tile Taranaki farmer.—N.Z. Times.