DAIRYING INDUSTRY.

Taranaki Daily News, 23 April 1921, Page 5

DAIRYING INDUSTRY.

PRODUCTION OF BUTTER. PROBABLE BIG INCREASE. The outlook for the dairy produce industry in the coming season is not very clear, but as the industry is of first importance to the country the views of an authority may be read with interest. “I wish I could tell what the prospects are,” he said to a New Zealand Times reporter, “but I can’t. There are so many things to be considered.” First of. all there were the falls in the pricesof meat and wool. Those falls might induce many additional holders of land to go in for dairying next season. In fact, that was expected to be the case. In the season just ended, for which the figures are not yet available, there was a big increase in the production of butter. This was due partly to the fact tnat many cheese factories switched over to butter in the course of the season, and from December Ist onward made nothing but butter. Many of the big factories have dual plants, and they are able to change over without much difficulty. GRAZJERS TURN TO DAIRYING.

With disappointed meat and wool, people going in for dairying next season, and probably for butter, there is exacted 'to be a still further increase in the quantity of butter produced in New Zealand. In any case, there will be more cows and more milk. The settling of the returned soldiers on the land has had something to do with the increased butter prodiictior., as a number of them have gone in for dairying. One thing likely to have a hearing on the next season’s production is the prolific growth of grass there was last sumifler. Inis means that more was available for hay than is usually the case. The welcome growth was due, of course, to the good weather experienced in most' of the dairying districts. With the greater quantity of hay at the disposal of the farmers the cows should fare bitter than usual in the coming winter, and should come into profit next spring in better condition than has been the case for some years. •On the other band, some .districts have had a very bad autumn for feed—an exceedingly dry autumn. The drought had hit the Wellington province as much as it had hit any part of New Zealand. The Wairarapa had been badly affected, and so had the Rangitikei. Maiiavvatu had suffered quite enough, but perhaps not so much as the other two districts. In Taranaki the southern areas and the lands round the coast had been severely hit. North Auckland had been exceptionally favored, and had escaped the troubles of the more southern districts. Perhaps Waikato had not been so fortunate as North Auckland, but it had been less unfortunate than the districts in this end of the island. AN OPPONENT IN MARGARINE.

On the question of the butter market, the authority mentioned that one of the things we had to contend against at Home was the Margarine trade. During the war there was not only enough margarine made to supply any lack of butter, but 53,000 ton? over. If we were now going to get to those customers with butter it would have to be at the expense of the margarine market, and we had to remember that margarine was cheaper to produce than butter was. It was hard to say how the next season would go. The value of meat was said to be unduly depressed. It might revive, but if it did not the value of cheese would be likely to drop, and if cheese dropped it was only a question