FARM AND DAIRY

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 120, 30 August 1910, Page 3

FARM AND DAIRY

Mr. A. E. Jull, of Waipawa, and others have purchased the dairy factory at Onga Onga (xlawke's Bay). Apparently the grtatbuiK of New Zealand butter and cheese will be shipped on consignment this season, as factories are asking prices which buyers cannot give for a whole season's output. The newspaper committee of the Fed; eration of Labor has advised that body to establish and control a weekly newspaper, to be known as the "New Zealand Labor Leader," with the sub-title of "St Journal of Industrialism, 'Socialism, and Politics."

The New Zealand correspondent of Dalgety's -Review holds that the prices now being paid for dairy farms precludes .the likelihood of any but a nominal interest oh capital invested. The only hope, tie says, is that the high prices of land will conduce to rmore scientific farming and cow-selecting. A new fodder plant lately introduced into Queensland is toeing experimented with, and shows good results. This is Essex rape. Planted on January, by July it was cut at 4ft 6iu high; and notwithstanding midwinter the plant is full of sappy succulence which when fed to dairy cattle led to a considerable increase of cream, k seems impervious to frost. The cost of planting was 2s 8d per acre for seed. iSajs the Lyttelton Times:—The oat harvest of Southland for this year, judging from the amount of grain carried to date over the railways, shows a shortage of more than two hundred thousand sacks from last year's harvest. The number of sacks carried up till Saturday was 634,671 as against 842,195 sacks carried during the same period of last year. "We don't look upon residence in a hut as residence," said the Commissioner of Crown Land 3 (Mr. James Mackenzie) to a selector who appeared before the Wellington Land Board with reference to his failure to erect a house upon his section.

A conference of district agricultural societies in Auckland decided to recommend to the Government that a system of branding dairy heifers .be established, "to prevent old cows being sold as young and valuable animals."

Tlie opening of the dairy industry in the Ashburton district has already had an effect on the cattle market. A Dromore farmer stated the other day that he had disposed, without any trouble, of a line of sitandard-bred Jersey heifers to supply the dairying demand at a price of seven guineas a fiead; and for an old Jersey, the mother of one of the heifers, he reecived £:8. The produce of these cattle will augment the supply in the: Methven district. At the annual meeting of shareholders of the Opunake Co-operative Dairy Co., the following report and balance-sheet was read:—Your directors have much pleasure in submitting the eleventh annual report and balance-sheet for the past year. During ,the season ended 30th June, MiO, 12,422,2421bs of .milk were received, and from this 536,020!bs of commercial butter have been manufactured, giving the result of lib butter to 23.171bs milk. The average test was 3.78 and the over-run 14.07. Payments for ibutter-fat throughout the year averaged 9.93, and there now remains a surplus of £2557 9s 4d to be dealt with. This surplus, together with payments already made, represents a value of 11.23 d per lb on the butter-fat for the, whole year.