PROFITS OF DAIRY HUSBANDRY.

Waikato Times, Volume XVIII, Issue 1558, 29 June 1882, Page 4

PROFITS OF DAIRY HUSBANDRY.

A 00N8nft&&faW'fti faVo^ ot (lairy'lius* t bandry is the price of, cheese and. butter as compared with 1 btller farm 'products/ Pori9da.of.activity.and depression occur, even'iu'liiiir^pi'baticts,butthe ! variations are nWsb s gVeat;''t;h"ey : have hoi such wide fluctuations as in the grain markets. - Our markets are. often glutted with, the different verities' 1 of ' grain/ -meafc/'wool, etc.rthe..uric>, running down below living rates, to' WfoUowett perliaps'by inflation - great extrepies cannot be.reached, iv $\v dairy. -"'The doVvs'of a dairy canndt' vary suddenly. . It takes four or five years to i product 'a'cowV' In fact the' cbws iri any country generally maintain' nearly a'uni- 1 form^akioiwifh the nilinber /of «inhaW-* tants, varying very little. In the United States, America, it has -remained nearly the same from the earliest settlement of the country to the -present .Say/ Varying littte-from twenty-three cows to onehundred 1 inn&nt&nts. >A/similar • Uniformity has prevailed in England and other countries of Europe. ' The l greatestvaifia-' tions are occasioned by good or bad seasons,'Vfhfin tW aggregate of- dairy products l iB'"swelle'a or diminished." The more 1 thoroughly the matter is investigated.the more thoroughly , does it appear that! the dairy affords, many advantages over the raising of cattle, and .the other branches of farming, especially in particular localities, and as a natural consequence dairying is steadily gaining adherents in all countries. ' To prove that keeping cows is more profitable than rearing and fattening steers, we have only to consider which produces the most food. For instance, we will 'say, one steer four yearsold weighs 15001bs and yields lOOOlbs of meat, it therefore takes three steers, allowing twelve years growth for beef, twelve years to make 300(Hbs of food, while one cow yields five - hundred pounds of cheese per year, meaning for twelve years GOOOlbs of food. Another consideration in favour of the dairy is the difference in the severity of labour in grain raising and dairy farming ; but, perhaps, the strongest inducement is the little exhaustion it occasions to the fertility of the soil. How the usual modes of farming exhaust the fertility o\ the 'soil is well known. The stores of plant food which untold ages had accumulated in the virgin soil are sapped away in a few short years of subjugation to the plough. The exhaustion goes on till the yield is reduced below profitable culture, when some new mode of operating must be adopted. However low the fertility may be reduced there is always still left in the soil an immense wealth of plant food, though unavailable for present use, because locked up in insoluble compounds, which require time and the action of the elements to unloose. Here then is a vast extent of land thus reduced for the restoration of which daiiy fanning is most appropriate and inviting. It stops at onde exhaustion, but docs not stop income. It brings good leturns f 10111 the first. Forage crops grow well were grain crops pay .poorly. Seeding down to grass gives time for air and water, heat, and frost to gradually unlock the tenacious compounds which hold the mineral elements of plants, as with a firm grasp, and lets them loose for the rootlets to feed upon, or to accumulate in tiie soil toi future use. It gives time for the afosoi bent properties of the soil to take in ele ments of fertility from the atmosphei c from the rains and dews of heaven In this way a farm that has been run down may be made to grow rich, and a rich one richer. The manure heap is the all-essential thing with the dairy man. His mode of farming allows him to consume the produce of his farm on his own premises, and to return nearly all that is taken from the soil, back whence it came. There is a steady exhaustion going on upon a dairy farm, as well as upon a grain farm, but it is small in comparison. It consists chiefly of phosphates that are carried away in the milk, and which may be easily restored with bone earth. The waste is so slow with ordinary care of the manure, that it is not usually felt for many years. By carefully saving all the liquid manure from the stables and the pens, the store which is already in the earth would hold out still longer. This a dairyman should always do. The liquid excretions of his animals are worth fully as much to the dairyman as the solid, because they contain just what dairy farming is all the time inclined to waste. To lose the liquid manure is to lose one-hulf the benefit to the farm from keeping a dairy. This fact is beginning to lie pretty well appreciated. While daiiy men are swelling the manure-heap by every available means, they are at the same time adopting conveniences to save and utilise the valuable liquids which in former clays were allowed to waste, and this increased economy in manures makes the contrast between a farm and a farmer growing rich and one that is growing poor, so great as to attract the attention of observant men, who become persuaded, and keep a dairy .and plough less. Peculiarities of soil have been supposed to set the most rigid limits to daiiying, especially to the cheese interest. But it is not easy to set definite bounds to the land from which good butter and cheese can only be made. Dairymen have been compelled to change their opinions in regard to the extent of daiiying lands, and with more light they may have occasion for further modification. It is but a few years ago that American dairymen believed that they were the only successful cheesemakers, and anticipated they would enjoy for ever the privilege, of supplying the world with cheese. Now Canada is not only snpplying herself but is sending to England some 50,000,000 a year more than America can produce. Victoria and New South Wales are now in the running, and I heard Mr Harding, the great cheese-maker in England, say that Victoria could produce a better keeping cheese than America was at present sending. Now, here we have a more equable climate than any of the other countries, and therefore, as r the atmosphere has so much to do with our daii ies, I consider we have a better chance than any other country under the sun. Cheese-making can now be carried on successfully anywhere that cows can be supplied with wholesome food and water, and where they can be maintained with a tolerable degree of health and comfort, and butter appears to have no narrower limits. The condition and circumstances of the , soil have, however, some influence upon the quality of milk and its products. In milk from- low moist ground, for instance, the butyraceous and cheesy matter wjll be softer than in milk from land which is high or rolling. If the high land is sandy or gravelly, the contrast will still be greater. A difference has also been noticed in the products of milk from loamy soils and those which are sandy or gravelly, both being ' alike rolling, and the herbage the same..,. It is evident 'that milk different inequality should' be treated differently; and »if the treatment and manufacture should in each' case be varied to suit, the variations in the milk, the' probability , is' •'that .the results in each case would .prove alike, satisfactoryr^ThS^pr^ht.jbtaie, p'f Wttfr-of-manufacturing-cheese-applies to milk from land' of medium moisture, , and does ■ Venrwefi pcl 1 very 'dry^lnlfa > more ad*

taken. Loamy soils with a rolling surface that will retain imdistifre without being wet ; soils on which grass will remain fresh , and j green [nearly .the entire season, and on which a turf may be retained for a lon# series of !,years- x produce butter and ctieese of the best quality ancl ;feed atitbe least cost andean) always, to >bd p,re'fe\Ted v An approximate certainty Of; uniform products anil prices, a diminution of.tho severe t labour -.of grain, grovring, a ce?sation r of of ishe soil,, and|,,the .re^entifon' upon the farm of nearly jail its fertilizing 'rtiatfrial.to aid in rpsto.i^i)g an i impoverished, sbil.ito, a rich aiid projductjv,©, one,,, are considerations which must in the future, as they do| now, have great.weight in Reading intelligent farmers to exchange the plough >foir the milk pail, , • , , i „ , 1 I ' „ . . ?9 B 4 CE AY ALPOLE '