NEW ZEALAND DAIRYING.

Taranaki Daily News, 17 December 1919, Page 6

NEW ZEALAND DAIRYING.

I FUTURE DEVELOPMENT. | IMPROVING DAIRY COWS. | UTILISING IDLE LANDS. j (Auckland Herald). The development of dairying in New Zealand lias been remarkable and romantic; the production of butter and cheese of dried milk and other milk forms has reached gigantic proportions; the class of dairy factory and factory management is so high that no other country holds a higher standard of co-operation, co-or-dination, and general organisation have reached great dimensions and dairying science occupies an important position; but anyone who imagines that New Zealand has nearly reached its limits as a dairying country will find himself greatly mistaken. Whatever developments have taken place in the past can be vastly exceeded in the future. The output of butter and cheese and dried milk could be doubled i:i a few years, and quadrupled in less time than it has taken the present industry to grow. There are occupied lands now used for sheep which can be used for the production of milk; there are occupied lands not used at present for anything which can be turned into pasture, there are millions of acres of Crown and Native lands lying idle which can be transformed into farms. Dairying offers better returns and better conditions for labor and capital now than ever it did in the past. The young New Zealander and the new immigrant farmer has better chances for starting and better chances of succeeding than had those who kid the foundations of New Zealand's dairying industry. People may point to the high value of dairying lands already reached in some districts as an indication that there is now no scope an this direction for the man with limited capital, but there are great tracts of country which can be readily bought at a pound or two an acre, which intelligent labor can turn into farms as productive as those now selling at £IOO an acre. There is another point, too, which must ba considered—the present high prices are given for land carrying rich pasture. The future of dairying depends not so much on rich pasture as upon the small farm highly cultivated, where crop* luce lucerne and maize and roots are grown and these, with the assistance of fertilisers, can be raised on what are now deemed second-class lands, or at any rate low-priced lands.

\ COWS AND BUTTER-FAT i-RODUC- | TION. I It is almost impossible to put a limit upon the increase in dairy products which can be accomplished by breeding highWJ.OOO dairy cows gave an average rewJTruS, lb ° f butter ' fat - I» IS" our <iu,vw dairy cows averaged 1611b an increase which meant over £1,500,000 in dairy exports. But 1611b is a low average, much too low for a favored country -™°„ is / The aTera ß° Danisl > cow yields oSOlb of butter-fat per annum, and the average return is still increasing It would be a comparatively easy task to Hit the New Zealand returns up to 2601b per annum, which, on the present number of 740,000 milking cows, would mean an increased return of over £5,550,000 a year It is not easy to improve the whole herds of a country in a short time, but it is not difficult for any enterprising farmer to procure a herd which will yield him at least double the present average return of butter-fat It would cost little more to buy ten first-class cows with an average yield of 3201b of butter-fat than it would cost to buy 40 ordinary cows, and yet ten of the higher class animals which could be carried on a small farm and handmilked by one man or woman would return a very handsome ineome. At the present price of butter-fat this small herd would yield £640 per annum from this source alone. The calves and skim milk from such a herd would be worth ' at least £IOO more, so that for a very moderate amount of labor there would be a return of £740 a year.

But ten cows would be too small a number, even for a single hand milker Twenty cows could be dealt with easily, and 20 good cows could be carried on 30 or 40 acres, or even on a less area. It is the good herd on the small farm which offers the big profits; which will solve the labor difficulty and increase the wealth production of the Dominion. To some it may sound extravagant to talk of a herd of 20 cows averaging 3201b of butter-fat a year. The' champion cow in New Zealand has yielded 9831b, and is expected to reach 10001b. It is not really impossible to have a small herd of cows even as good as this. Imagine a man" owning ten cows, giving £IOOO worth of butter-fat a year, and what would the calves of such heavy yielders be worth, and would the present price of land matter to a man owning such animals? BUTTER-FAT PRODUCTION OF LAND

It is difficult to decide whether the development of New Zealand's dairying industry could be expanded, most extensively by the improvement of dairy cows, or the improvement of dairying land. It is probable that land offers the greatest scope. Experts estimate that oyeragcly it takes three acres of land in New Zealand to keep one cow, that is, of course, where cows are kept on pasture, and practically on pasture alone, but it is by no means difficult to make land carry a cow to 1J acres. In fact, this is being done extensively, even in districts which, but a few years ago, were considered second-class land. Systematic top-dressing, the saving of' a few acres of hay, and the growing of a few acres of turnips make this average possible almost everywhere in New Zealaii'.:, and in this direction alone it is possible to carry nearly double the present number of cows on the present area of land used for dairying purposes H we doubled the butter-fat production of our cows, it is certain that we should double the carrying capacity of our land, for no farmer would dare to risk carrying good cows on grass alone. Both results are obtainable, and with what reward? Without increasing the present acreage in use, the exports of dairy produce could be lifted from £7 - 500,000 to £30,000,000 a year. Is there not room, then, and incentive enough for the expansion of dairying in New Zealand? And the standard of an acre and a-half of land per cow is really very moderate. Under intensive farni- ; ing a cow to the acre, or even two cows to the acre is not an extravagant estim-

ate. With well-fertilised pastures, plots of lucerne, maize, millet, special grasses, roots, and their complements in hay and ensilage, two cows to the acre is certainly possible in moat parts of New Zealand, and this by growing all the feed required on the land, without buying a shilling's worth of concentrated food-stuffs. This being the case, is it rasy to place any limit to the growth of New Zealand's dairying industry during the next ten years? IMPROVING IDLE LANDS.

It was generally accepted until quite recently that the best dairying land in New Zealand was to be found in the Taranaki province and in certain parts of the Wellington province, and it is certainly a fact that even to-day the highest prices are being paid for dairying land in those districts. It is there where £IOO an acre is commonly paid for dairy farms, and they are evidently well worth this price. But it will have to be acknowledged sooner or later that in the reclaimed and partly reclaimed and the swamps still to be reclaimed in the Auckland district there exist hundreds of thousands of acres capable of carrying pasture which for butter-fat

production will equal if not surpass the best dairying districts in other parts of New Zealand. The work already accomplished on the Hauraki and Rangitaiki Plains, at Raupo, Ruawai, Kaitaia, and other places, proves this. But as before remarked, it was not to the rich pasture land alone that we have to look for dairying expansion or butter-fat production. Some of the light, comparatively cheap lands of the Waikato are ducing as much money per acre as the rish and high-priced grass lands of Taranaki or Wellington. Last season a farmer at Matamata, who a few years ago bought his land at £l4 an acre, carried a dairy cow to 1J acres, and his cows averaged a monetary return of over £27 each. In the same district smaller farms are carrying at the rate of a cow to the acre, which goes to show that it lies in the power of man' to so improve land that it will equal in productivity to those lands which were made rich by nature. As a matter of fact no one who knows anything about farming will doubt this, and the question of improving land is merely a question of outlay and returns. If men are willing to pay £IOO an acre lor naturally rich soils is it not good business to spend a certain sum of money ih enriching naturally poor soils, and will any experienced agriculturist deny that second-class lands can be brought to a high state of productivity for a much less cost than £IOO per acre. This is the key problem to the development of dairying on what have hitherto been deemed inferior lands. Until a few years ago it was commonly believed that dairying could be successfully carried out only on naturally rich pasture land. Now we know by innumerable experiences that under the splendid climate which New Zealand enjoys the modern farmer cannot not only make excellent pasture, but can grow profitable stockfeeding crops on almost every class of land which can be ploughed. This being so there are opened up to dairying mil" lions of acres now lying idle in the northern parts of New Zealand, and it is on these lands where now settlers can build up pastures and create farms at a comparatively low cost, and eventually ereate values which will amply repay all the cost and the labor and the waiting.

It is accepted now that the drainage and reclamation of the great swamp areas of the north will vastly increase the output of New Zealand's dairy products but it is not sufficiently 'recognised that the reclamation and improvement of the immense areas of light and dry soils now lying idle will add more butter-fat and meat to the exports of New Zealand than all the new swamp areas in the country. There is more truth than appears in the bald statement that New Zealand's dairying industry is only commencing, for there lies before it yet immense possibilities for expansion (1) in improving the yield of cows; (2) in improving the cow-carry-ing capacity of lands now used for dairying purposes; (3) in improving still further the methods of manufacture; (4) and greater than all perhaps in improving the lands of the Dominion that are iymg unused at present, and by labor and skill turning them into dairy farms