FARM AND DAIRY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 373, 26 April 1910, Page 7

FARM AND DAIRY.

ALL-THE-YEAR-ROUND DAIRYING. The day has gone by ior "butterfly dairy n< or in° other words mining jffiAg as the natural pastures last and then letting the cows out to do ft* themselves, and get what food he) ca o„ bare pastures, and to havc the shel ter afforded by a wire fence In the days of very cheap land and equally Sp°labor\his U» <* « might have done well enough, but the Stered conditions of the last twenty years had made profitable dairying, cairied out on this system, impossible We chief factor in the success of the Dan lies in the regular supplies furnished Dy that people. From January tc.December their butter is always on the in t»ket, while that of most other countnes, ],S our own, is only available at certam ISioßsoftheyear. The trade, » consequence, have to be enticed on to New Zealand butter when it comes on the market and weaned off it when the season is over. Under these circumstance* it is absolutely hopeless to expect that there will ever be the same keen demand and the same high prices, .when the supplies are as uncertain as the vagaries of a comet. The remedy, therefore, is plain. We must alter our system to suit our customer. In the past the system of butterfly dairying peculiar to New Zealand has required the calvhw of the whole of the dairy herd hvthe°early spring and the simultaneous drvin"-off of the whole herd in the early winter, or late autumn. This has entailed the dispersal of the whole of the necessary labor, often secured with the very greatest difficulty, and what is very much worse the absolute stoppage of the welcome monthly cheques. Speakimr generally it may be said that the income of the average New Zealand factory dairyman commences with the pay day of 20th beptember, and ceases wio.li that of the 20th June. During the winter time the money that has been accumulated during the summer is being, rapidly encroached on, while the cows are running down in condition, and the labor being scattered to the four winds of heaven. But in Denmark there is no interregnum in the monthly cheques; indeed, thev are often at their highest in , the winter; there is no dispersal of the necessary labor, and there are no depleted bank accounts at the opening oi the oprinsr. as is too often the case with us The "remedy for this unsatisfactory state of things,' of course, must first be sought by providing a sufficiency of winter feed/and a system of winter soiling, backed by having the cows come m in the late autumn, instead of the early sprin« This system would secure an all-the-year-round season, an increased income of some 25 per cent, more than obtains by the present method, or it has been* proved beyond a doubt in countries where feeding on sysl.-niatK-lines is most careiullv carried out. that at lea-t that amount of increase is maae "by autumn as compared with spring eaWin" cows. This is a more lm-pori-ant point for the consideration of daymen than is generally supposed, because on' this depends the question whether tne necessary amount of labor required in the industry will be retained by the dairy farmers,'or whether that labor, on account of the stupid 'shutting-up policy will be driven to other occupations where regular all-thc-year-round work is assured— Dairyman.

■UNIFORMITY— A REMARKABLE

LESSON.

Tt, caterin* to modern critical, marKs; ""*»«« l i-i ;- nf course, a great ullul ' mocurable with uniformity. Tin. wU Keen demonstrated in the grade - Slihed bv some of our meat comS and the standard mainta.nea on 23 of the Dominion, loajinj dairy companies; tat the uleal i> » » ' r S hasten the accomimportance of uniformity, and U.ui»c Ihc part this market consideration jlajs ! Ksuccess of Danish butter and mdeed of other Danish commouitic,,, .ucl „ bacon and eges. The most stnk.n? Srtweeof tnevalueof umoraitym commanding business is extraordinary success of Dairy Company, of London, \Soid has preached New Zealand that l,d dend paid by the company la»t. >eai * 85pe cent, against C2 per cent fo. pre nous rear. The sole reason for this Outstanding success is uniformity combined with quality. There are only three articles sold by the company-hut-ter ei and tea; but at every one of the thousands of shops of the concern scattered over London and throughout he provinces of England, the same quality of butter, eggs and tea ,s maintained and sold. It is easy enough to seen e t desired uniformity in tea, as the company has its own plantations in Ceylon it 'is in the butter and eggs where tho'Seat lesson we would point to • comes in. The Maypole Company Ims been able to give effect to its great nolicvof supplying the same article to rt» customers all over England by haying Danish butter and eggs at command. No other country in the world could give the Maypole Company what it wants—a continuous supply right throughout the vear. of an absolutely uniform article' ' This is good for the Danish producer, who deservedly profits by his sound co-operative method*: but it is apparently even better for the man who handles this product on the British marked The Mavpole Company maintains a Viivcr of butter continuously in Denmark, as well as a buyer of c_'gs. The uniformity in the products it se Is is not, however, the only way in winch the successful Home company benefits bv uniformity. Every one of its shops is painted and decorated in exactly the same way, while even the dressing ol the windows is always identically the same On one day the dressing of the London shop windows is altered and at the same time every shop front ot the company throu«hout England is climbed to a replica of these. The system is remarkable. The London customer mav go to Briaton or Bristol, or Birmingham and he can walk into the same Maypole shop he has 1 n accustomed to. and secure the same butter, csgs and tea he has always been in the habit of buying. , It is unnecessary to point out \vn? the connection the Mav pole Com nan., has built up for Danish products—though the English consumer knows j -them" onlv as Maypole butter and Maypole eggs—mean? to the Danish producer. "Obviously, it ensures to Mm a, return profitable even when markets are [ ■ weak, and rivals hare to accept what

the general trade will pay. The lesson is certainly of vital significance to the New Zealand dairy farmer—Farmers' Union Advocate.

[ FARMS ON THE HIKE SYSTEM. I The hire-purchase system, as applied to the acquisition of ready-male farms in the wheat belts of North-west Canada, a scheme which has been elaborated by Sir Thomas Shaugnessy, is one to which public attention the world over is at present being directed. The idea- is to erect a home and barn, stock it, ami plough and plant forty acres of a one hundred and sixty-acre plot with grain, so that the newly-arrived settler, directly he reaches his new home, may be able to continue farming just as if he had returned to his English farm after an absence of a week or two. The price of such a ready-made farm will be about £BOO or £IOOO, and the tenant enters into possession upon payment of 10 per cent, of the purchase price, and the balance in ten annual instalments. Such a scheme will enable every immigrant possessing, say, £IOO when he reaches Canada, to become his own master, for obviously a scheme entailing such a small outlay will attract a larger number of prospective farmers than if. it were necessary to lay £IOOO at once. The farm being already a going concern, the new tenant will be able to commence work at once and till the balance of some one hundred and eighty acres of the plot for the next season's crop, while the .part already planted before his coming is maturing. On the basis of £3 of C profit per acre, the forty acres would yield £l2O, from which would have to •he deducted the £BO or £IOO payable to the owners. The next year, the whole area being under cultivation, a handsome balance would be left on the year's working, after paying the annual instalment. This is one of the most attractive schemes that has yet been elaborated for drawing the liritisk farmer to North-west Canada, and as arrangements are provided for enabling him to extend his acreage as he prospers, he can obtain the freehold of a farm of 320 acres within the course of a very tew years, and well establish himself on the road to independence.

MISCELLANEOUS. A certain farm, a few years ago wa l one of the most fruitful m Southland is now on the market, and as a po sib purchaser one of Southland's S knoln agriculturalists went o view it. - ; I would not have it at an\ mdee- it is blooming with thistles/' .was Kernark to a Southland Tune..reporter. In many other instance,, it is said, the Canadian thistle is playing havoc in the South. \ Wairarapa fanner imported some Tuscan wheat from Teinuka, m tilt S nth Wand, for experimenta purposes l,st season. The crop, which ha* k lt lv been threshed, has returned •Sd averaging forty bushels per ae , iSich, taking into considera urn «*,**■ son e Sites that in parts the vend was full fif bushels per acre, the averaging Seed by one or two wet patches m the paddock, where the wheat did not settlers in the Wairaraoa numbers of. cats on ? ch of their sections as '.re intccted iwtu bIS an<l so far the experiment has successful, the eats takmg,-ob-session of the burrows and tlm» dimn„ the rabbits further back. The value of bluegums on the farm - |„o ocnerally recognised to the, extent Ct it might be. AfamermtteJUj; terton district states that about cigh and also several totara .posts, and to found that the latter had I decayed first. , About two years ago some 10,000 I.idv birds were imported to New /onUin. and distributed over to the two islands Ifethe purpose of cheeking the woo y I aphis blight on fruit trees, Tt. natmaHy takes time for the. little inserts to bi--1 come established, but already they have been seen in some districts doing rcau> good work in the way ot checking . - blh'ht The problem of eradicating Ule woolly aphis is a most difficult one. and really no certain cure has yet been discovered. Spraying the trees with oil gets rid of the trouble to some extent, but it has not the same finality as the application of arsenate of lead has m dealing with the codlin moth. , While some authorities are hinting. 1 and not without cause, that N>w_ Zealand sheep are deteriorating, it is interesting to note that a recent vessel •leaving "Wellington took 200 Lincoln two-trfoth flock rams to be delivered to a well-known New South Wales sheepbreeder. The rams were all purchased after careful selection, from growers m the Hawera district. A Christchureh -cientist has made some interesting observations on the caterpillar pest that did such extensive damage to the crops in Canterbury lately. He collected fifty, and placed them in a box with two inches of dirt in the bottom, and covered it with glass to facilitate observation. In twenty-tour hours every caterpillar had sunk into the soil, and in seven davs the batch had been converted into moths of a. slatey "rev color, having four wings. With the moths appeared"several blue Hies, not unlike blowflies, but smaller and more active. About a third of the chrysalides had been destroyed by a maggot, and the scientist concluded that tile blue llv was the natural enemy of the pest, k laid an egg in the caterpillar's back, and the egg hatched underground. The "advisability or otherwise of rugsniff cows for winter is a debatable point among many farmers. A Masterton fanner stated recently that, generally speaking, he was against it. because, as a rule,'it entailed more trouble than the majority of farmers were inclined to take. It was essential, if tin- cows were to get the full benefit of them, that the rugs should be left off on .bright sunny days, and equally essential that they should be left on'during cold wet davs This was not always done, many fanners putting the rugs on and oil' at milking, irrespective of the, condition, of the weather. With rugs. too. he was n f (he opinion that the cows ought to be groomed fairly often, all of which meant, more work. ' He believed instead in plenty of shelter trees, under which the cows could °eek cover at will, and it would probably be found at the cud "f the season, he concluded, that the cows that had the benefit of the shelter treehad given quite as much milk as those that had been rugged, while thev would almost to a certainty be hardier and better able to withstand any sudden changes of climate that might occur.