The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo. THURSDAY, AUGUST 28, 1902. THE DAIRY INDUSTRY

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIII, Issue 204, 28 August 1902, Page 4

The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 28, 1902. THE DAIRY INDUSTRY

Fop the cause that lacks assistance

For the wrong that needs resistance

For the future in the distance

■And tho good that we can cio.

A considerable number of our rentiers would pay little attention to the report of the meeting held yesterday afternoon in the V.M.C.A. Hq.ll. It may appear to them that the excellent report, and the congratulatory speeches which accompanied it, concerned only the fortunate shareholders of the New Zealand Dairy Association. As a matter of fact, however, ihe results disclosed

are of importance to everyone! who has a permanent stake in j the colony. They have also ia direct] bearing upon the income and expen-i diture of every family. This rather j .sweeping- statement will be readily unuerstood by those who remenibel the time, not far distant, when ca.ttlere.'i.ring for the butchers was the chief resource of the Waikato farmer; and those later years of depression in the pastoral industry, during" which the settler debated whether it was worth while* to rear his calves. All that has been changed by the. development of the factory system of dairying-, which has turned small holdings of our rich! grass lands into little gold mines for the industrious settler, and has contributed more to the prosperity of the colony in the past five years than anj' new factor among- its productive iesources. Tt is only necessary to glance at the growth of the export of butter t«j realise what a source of wealth dairying1 has been to the farmer directly, and to tall other industrial and mercantile interests indirectly. In ISO 2 the total export of butter from Hew Zealand was valued at £227,162; last year (1901) the export had risen to £852,400 in value, and it is growing every year. Why, the report of the Dairy Association, and Mr Spragg's comments thereon, show very clearly In eleven months this j'ssociaition has manufactured nearly 2a million pounds of butter, with an average aggregate return to the settlers of 9M to 10M per lb of butter fat, or, including returns from skim milk, of 1/ to 1/1 per lb. When dairy1 farmers recall the prices they got for much of their butter under the old .system, after the toil expended in manufacturing it, which reduced the wives of many of our most industrious settlers to a condition of constant drudgei'y, there is reason indeed for rejoicing.

These achievements are the outcome of co-operation in manufacture and the adoption of scientific methods. It is pleasant to know that the extension of the co-operative principle to the sale of the butter, as well as the supply of raw material to the factories, has, in the* case of the Dairy Association, proved such an unqualified success. The system the direp* tors of the company are' pursuing will stimulate dairying over wider areas, and lead' to the Settlement of many contented families upon grass lands which are now locked up in big estates. No agency so effective as this for promoting- close settlement has ever been devised. And if the denizen of the city has had to pay incidentally more for his juicy beefsteak, because of the profitable use of cattle for dairy purposes, he maj r console himseh' with the reflection that we are all dependent for our subsistence upon the productiveness of the land; the prosperity of the farmer, and the widening" area •brought under cultivation, are the best guarantees we can have of an enduring prosperity. New Zealand brands of butter now hold the highest rank in the world for quality, and although threats of serious rivalry are heard occasionally from the Argentine and Southern Siberia, no one who considers the unequalled natural advantages which New Zealand possesses for dairying can feel'any alarm about-our ability to hold bur own in" this special field. _. _ J.',' : .