FEIDAY, JUNE 22, 1906. THE NATIONAL DAIRY ASSOCIATION.

Evening Post, Volume LXXI, Issue 147, 22 June 1906, Page 4

FEIDAY, JUNE 22, 1906. THE NATIONAL DAIRY ASSOCIATION.

m The annual dairy convention under the auspices of the National Dairy Association of New Zealand, Limited, has been held this week at Palmerston North, in conjunction with the twelfth annual meeting of the association, and the large and representative attendance of delegates—about 150 all told—and the keen interest displayed in the proceedings throughout were worthy of the importance of the occasion. The dairy industry now stands in the very forefront of the industries of the colony, wool, frozen meat, and gold alone contributing a larger share to our exports, while if the rapidity of progress during recent years be made the test, it can challenge the competition of any rival. In the ten years from 1894 onwards the exports of butter and cheese increased in value from £366,483 to £1,695,030 ; and, according to a statement made by Mr. J. G. Harkness, the secretary of the association, in his interesting ' paper on "How to Build up a Dairy Herd," "the manufactured articles made from milk now exceed in value £2,250,000 per annum." It is quite possible that in the near future, as Mr. Horkness suggested, dairy produce may head the list of our exports; but the extraordinarily keen and steadily growing competition which the industry , has to face from Canada and the United States, from the Argentine and Siberia, not to mention little Denmark, makes it at least equally probable* that we shall be sore put to it to hold our own. The note of the proceedings at Palmerston was therefore very properly far from one of idle jubilation. It was recognised on all hands that the present prosperity of the industry affords no ground for the complacent slackening of effort; that, on ithe contrary, its position is such as to require the utmost vigilance and per* aistence in every department if it is to keep its footing in the market* of the world. 'Chough the dairy industry owes its great sucoeas mainly to the a&wnce of science and mechanics, to tfo» fertffity of our toil, and the energy of our tonnerj, it but ftl«o-to acknom^* wuM6t*VL&

obligations to the State, which, by the! expenditure of public money in teaching the arts of butter and cheese making, and proper methods of packing and shipping, in encouraging improvements in the breeding of dairy cattle, and in grading all produce intended for export, has done much to promote the efficiency of the industry, and its reputation abroad. So much indeed has the Government done that one bonders to find that it has not done a little more, and that the oft-re-peated request of the leading men in the industry for an experimental 6tation still remains unanswered. In his presidential address, Mr. J. W. Foreman complained that the association had been for years agitating for the establishment of such a station, but their efforts were still fruitless. "The Government," he said, "were not yet alive to the position" ; and it is surely high time that they were. There is no art or science' that can afford to dispense with experiment where experiment is possible; and the public will share the wonder expressed by the president of the National Dairy Association that New Zealand, which needs an experimental statior- just as much as other countries, and is able to give them an excellent lead in many respects, is content to lag behind them in this. The liberal grant of money for the purpose of experiments by the Danish Government has been one of the contributing factors to the remarkable development of dairying in Denmark ; and the work accomplished in the same direction by the United States and Canada is well known. " Our own Government has an experimental farm for crops, fruit trees, etc., and it is busily conducting all manner of experiments in the social and political sphere, yet it cannot afford an experimental station for what is already [ one of the greatest of our industries, but may, though its present prospects are still bright, b© reduced at any time to small proportions byitho competition of foreign nations. With such competition in such an industry we can afford lo lose no changes, but the Government is losing a chance here. If Mr. Hall-Jones is at a loss for some new materif 1 at once new nnd sound for the Governor's speech next week, let him include an experimental station for the dairying industry in the programme: