FARM AND DAIRY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 245, 22 November 1909, Page 1

FARM AND DAIRY.

The Stratford Factory paid out the >uni ol £5440 15s to lts suppliers on Saturday for October butter-fai!

Tasmania exported 034,1100 cases of apples to 111-Ham last se.i,on, a-ahist 484,000 in the pre nous season Tl,„ rough average .per case ],„■ las.na ua was Us 2d m 1W)», ,i„d ss id in 1008, gross; commission, lamliiiu cimrta-s. tll to come oil' this. ° ''

The Eltham Dairy Co.'s milk cheques for October total jtSiiii, as against £BB9I for the correspomiing iiioiiui ol last year. This year Hie company is consigning. Xo fewer than 221,0U81bs of butter were made, being an increase of 83381 us compared with October m 1908.

Some time ago a farmer in Taranaki sold his farm for what he considered a rcaly good figure. Uc took a trip round the .North on the look-out for another, but not. satisfied with anything he saw he returned and re-purchased his old farm, feeling assured that he had not seen anything in his travels which compared with South Taranaki.—Hawera Star.

The milk received during October by the Kaupokonui dairy factory was as follows (the October, 1908, figures beino in parentheses): Milk, G,737,7331bs (U,2U/,S00); fat, 237,2901bs (218,89/); test, 3.52 (3.49); payment, £9883 lis Cd (. £10,028 18a lOd). Payment this year is at lOd, whereas last year it was lid per lb of butter-fat.

America is buying hides from Europe heavily, owing to the duty bavin* been taken off, and leather has become suddenly dearer in England. The hides of the American cattle slaughtered there are transhipped to the States. An enormous quantity of leather is used in the motor industry. Hides are dearer than they have been for a long time past; and a permanently hardening market price for leather is anticipated.

The South Taranaki Winter Show Company, Limited, was registered on November 5 with an office at Princes Street, Hawera. The following particulars of the registration are reported l>v the Mercantile Gazette:—"Capital .tliOif, in 000 shares of £5 each. Subscribers: F. W. WilkH 10, A. W. Gillies 5 E. E. Xaldcr 5, J. A. Turton 4, R. F. Page 4, K. 11. Nolan 2, R. W. Sargent 2, and others. Objects: To carry on and establish in Hawera a winter show or exhibition of farming and dairying utensils, machinery, etc."

The dairy expert, Mr. Sawyers, speaking at a gathering of farmciv aI. South llillcnd, who discussed the proposal to build a dairy factory by means of a cooperative company, said the time was not far distant when Southland would be as great a dairying district as Taranaki. The industry required a certain rainfall, and Southland could always rely upon that. Every farmer desired that his farm should be worth "the dairying price,'' but no matter how good or how well watered his farm might be. that standard could not be attained unless a factory was within convenient distance. .Successful dairying made it possible to take off the laud just as half as much again as compared to agricutural or pastoral farming.

According to some Auckland merchants the potato blight lias made its ■ appearand-' in their district. Within the last fortnight instances have been . ■■• ported of potato patches being apparently ill splendid condition one evening, but blackened with blight next morn ing. Crops at l'ukekohe, at Palmare, and in the Northern Waikato are stated to 'be among those smitten, la conse quenee of this, large growers who depend on their potato crops for a living ar" going in for vigorous spraying, holding small areas in and around Auck land are digging lip their crops, and, ai though the supply of old potatoes from the South has ceased, and the market lias to depend on the new tuber* 1 locally grown, it is thought likely that the market may shortly contain a certain quantity of weedy, immature stock during November and December. The upper part of the Waikato district (known as the early potato area) generally supplies Auckland, and if the blight continues to spread an inferior class of potato may reach the market. The opinion is generally expressed, however, that if spraying is carried out assiduously the crops will be safely carried to maturity, and as there is a very large area planted this year (larger than usual) it is unlikely that the supplies will lie uncomfortably small, or that potatoes will reach the extremely high prices which ruled a few years ago, when the blight made its iirst appearance in the Dominion.

Writes M. H. T. Drew, a New Zealand journalist, who is touring Denmark, to the Wellington Dominion:—The hest insight into the dairy industry was obtained in the course of about on a bicycle, during which a great portion of the kingdom was ransacked. I carried an open letter in the 'Danish language asking dairymen to lot a New Zealander look over their premises. Several times permission was refused - suspicion of the ferretting inspector exists here also—once a dog was set upon us', once we entered by mistake tit'. 1 itablcs of a prince in country residence; on another occasion a slow-going vokel-in-charge was so struck by Ihe writing on the paper that liis open-moiiih «widor was appalling; ho, couldn't speak, and after five minutes we left, and tied onward, to behold him from down Ihe horizon still Razing after us. On the whole, and, after seeing many farms, one is tempted to say' either that all that New Zealand dairy farmers arc ton! by experts' about the contaminating influences of the proximity of genn-henr-iiiff a'»oncie- pigslves. manure heap;, lilihv' sheds and stables-is thenreiieal extravagance, or else that llrilish bolter would fail In stand the test of cold storage, and long-keeping tb.nl the New Zealand article is subjected to. Certainly some of Ihe large milking estates are run on model lines, but the rank and file places are not a.s clean as their contemporaries in New Zealand. Photographs taken en route ean afford proof. Statements l„ the contrary must emanate from gentlemen who-as so often happens to distinguished visitors to our own shore*- -were shown, under escort, onlv the best and mos't famous ''model' dairies. lfow main- Danish dairies would conform to the regulations of the New Zealand Agricultural Department':'