DAIRY PRODUCTION

Dominion, Volume 25, Issue 264, 3 August 1932, Page 3

DAIRY PRODUCTION

“Prepare for Good Times” VALUE OF FERTILISERS False Economy Deprecated Dominion Special . Service. , Masterton, August 2. Gatherings of dairy farmers in various parts of the Wairarapa have been addressed during the past few days by Mr. C. M. Hume, Dominion supervisor of herd-testing. The two subjects elaborated on by Mr. Hume were herd-testing and pig-recording, the latter a system which 1 has achieved considerable success in the Waikato. The three fundamentals of success in dairying, according to Mr. Hume were herdtesting, which was the keynote of dairying, adequate fertilising, without which land would never give a good return, and sound farm management. “Be Prepared.” "I will not attempt to predict what is ahead of us in the near future,” said Mr. Hume, “but I am certain the sun is going to rise again. My message is to be prepared fbr the good times when they come along again; and'l am firmly convinced they are not so very far ahead.” Mr. Hume observed that if the dairy farmers to-day could keep to the three. fundamentals ■ he had enumerated, then the one or two years of good prices would make up for. the losses they had suffered in the past. New Zealand farmers were not feeling the depression to anything like the same extent that their competitors in the Northern Hemisphere, particularly the Danes, were feeling it The slumps did good in the long run, he observed. Bad times always brought about improved management. He had found that it was the 1921-22 slump that had made the dairying industry in the Waikato, and the present depression was going to put the industry in a really impregnable position. The most striking information given by Mr. Hume was that relating to the falling-off in production in dairying all over the Dominion owing to the decreased use of fertilisers. Last season, he. said, the dairy farmers of the Dominion saved £650,000 in fertilisers, and chiefly on account of this saving lost a sum of £3,000,000 in butterfat returns. .■ >

Fertiliser Cut Down. i In 1931-32, Mr. Hume said, the dairy farmers of the Dominion cut down their use of fertilisers as compared with the quantity per cow applied in 1929-30 by 131,000 tons, valued at £650,000. This reduction, he considered, was the principal factor accounting for a drop in the yield of butterfat in 1931-32 by an amount which at a ’ price of lOd per lb would have added £3,000,000 to the returns of the dairy industry in’ that season. The peak of dairy production was reached U n 1929-30, when the average butterfat per cow was 218.11 b. That was also the peak season in the use of fertilisers, 350,000 .tons being applied, an equivalent of 4.3 cwt. per cow. . ( : It was in the winter of .1930 that the farming community saw definite evidence .that they were in- for a real slump, continued Mr.-Hume. The dairy industry started to economise and restricted the use of fertilisers. Only 300,000 tons, were applied in 1930-31, and the average production dropped to 2011 b. In the following year' 250,000 tons, or 2.Bcwt. per cow, were used, and theyield went down to 1851 b. The ntimber of - cows increased 1 from 1,440,000 in 1929-30 to 1,900,000 (estimated) for 1932-33. If fertilising continued to decline, Mr. Hume prophesied, the average - yield would fall to between 170 and 1751 b, and the industry would have slipped back to where it was 1 14 years ago. 1 '• • - ' ■