A LAZY LIFE.

Franklin Times, Volume 14, Issue 258, 29 July 1925, Page 7

A LAZY LIFE.

I PRIMITIVE METHODS. ! DAIRYING IN ARGENTINE. (By M. A. O’Callaghan, late Commonj wealth Dairy Expert), i BUENOS AIRES, March 25. j When Mast wrote I was away south studying the ways of the Argentine : dairy farmer. Since then I have re- ! visited that district, and have seen the J country all green and smiling, aftci j bounteous rains. I have motored j across 150 miles of the finest stretch J of dairy pasture land's that I know i anywhere. In many ways it reminds me of the western districts of Victoria, though in its northern part, where lucerne flourishes, it resembles more the Darling Downs of Queensland. '< ■ Wheat is grown in certain sections, and here there are many Danes and Swedes, to whom the squatter, or estancia owner, lets his land on shares. This wheat land is very rich, quite level, and not a stone of any kind to be found. There is a very good natural pasture, but English grasses flourish where they are sown, after wheat. The flavour of the cream produced in this district is equal to that produced even in the Golden Vale of the County Limerick, or in the best part of the western district of Victoria, or on the choicest pastures of Illawarra, •New South Wales. Rye grass, cocksfoot, clover and prairie grass all grow well here, but paspalum is not seen at all- so far south. The winters here are, I am informed, quite cold, and as a good deal of the country has little or no timber, save round the estancia homesteads, no doubt cattle feel the bitter winds from off the Andes during June and July. Methods of the Farmer. Now to return to the farmer and his methods. Let me first explain that there are here, in the district of Tandil, practically no farmers as we know them in Australia. Here the landowner lets his land on one of two systems. Firstly, either in a large block of. say 5000 acres, to a creamery proprietor, who in turn sub-lets to men who milk cows and send the milk to the creamery of their landlord. Secondly, the estancia owner sometimes lets on shares, or on yearly rental, direct to a sort of farmer who does nothing other than graze the cows and milk them. The houses of the so-called farmers are scarcely worthy of the name. The landowner does not provide a house, and as the farmer has but a short tenure, lie builds only a sort of mud hut, Here and there one sees a tambero grande, or large farmer,, who owns his land, farms it, and lives in a decent house. Argentina before it can be a great •country must provide by law T a. better system of land management and subdivision than at present. Now all the land is owned by a few people, who have become very rich owing to the increasing value of the land for farming and grazing, and peasants from Europe live like black fellows, make a little money for themselves, and hope some day to buy a little land. Wholly Uneducated. Under such conditions, it will at once be seen that the only system by which a good cream may be obtained is for th.e farmer to take the milk to a creamery as soon as possible after it is taken from the cow's. Some farmers do separate their own cream in this district, but these are mostly tamberos grande s. If Argentine reverts to the private separator in the total it will be impossible to make a choicer butter- here in any quantity for many years to come, and these are the reasons: The dairying population is wholly uneducated as to the standard of cleanliness necessary in order to produce a good - cream, and, with three or four different races and scores of uneducated immigrants arriving weekly, it would take 10 to 20 years of steady education to enlighten the dairy workers. No; the road to success in Argentina is smaller creameries, more of them, and a daily delivery of milk immediately after it is drawn from the cow. In the south, where the country is entirely of the pastoral type, the cows are milked out in the open. They are assembled in the corner of a paddock; the calves, which were separated from their mothers during the night, are muzzled and allowed to come to the cows. Each calf is now standing with its head near the cow’s udder; the cow thinks tiie calf is assisting in the job of milking and the cow stands quietly until milked. Then the calf is allowed to do the stripping. In this way the cow is truly milked out to a finish, and the working of the calf when man has finished develops the udder in the milk-producing work. It is now perhaps 8 o’clock, and until about J p.m. the calf is the sole milker of the cow. Milking Once a Day. Needless to add that under this system the cows are milked but once a day by man. Dairying in this way on good cow-pasture land is a lazy life. True the peasant rises early, and is milking by 5 a.m.. but his work is done by 9 or 10, when he delivers the milk to the creamery. He lakes his midday meal about 11 a.m.. and then he sleeps for some time. At 3 o’clock one man rounds up the cattle; the calves are separated, and the day s work is mostly done. Where a man owns his own land, of course, it is different, as then he grows some crops—lucerne, com, linseed, etc —and provides himself with an afternoon means of work. Far south, however, there is little or no cropping; lucerne does not appear to flourish, and corn seems to be the only thing a dairyman grows. , Each farmer milks aboul 100 cows, all Shorthorn type. In other districts, however, the land is closely settled, and the farmers own the soil. There a somewhat different system prevails. The Australian will, no doubt, say this is not dairy farming; no, not as he knows it, hut a man farms only to live and make some money, and if he can live and make sufficient money for his demands in this way, why go to the trouble of milking twice a day, early and late? And again, remember, here is a country where beef is worth more for ex- ■

port than in Australia, and the calf reared as described above gees forward to the job of making flesh for beef on a better basis than the handreared calf, speaking generally. The Spaniard and the Italian, who comprise most of the population, liked their afternoon siesta. You could, no doubt, purchase this siesta, but you must pay the price.

Casein Manufacture. Now, no doubt you are wondering what is done with the skim milk. Well, it is made into casein. Every creamery and many farmers make casein, and this is why Argentina is the largest exporter of casein in the world. Casein is made on the French system as a general rule. The skim milk as it leaves the separator meets a constant flow of very acid whey, which coagulates the casein / immediately. The mixture flows into a big wooden cistern, where it remains till next morning, when it is taken out and placed in a large press similar to a chese press. Here it remains for 24 hours, and then it is put through a cutting or milling machine, after which it is put on trays and dried in the sun.

This is a cheap process of drying, lnit coal here is too dear to use for heat, for casein drying, and it is better lo sell casein at £ls to £2O per ton less than Australian casein rather than use coal to dry it. Goal costs £4 a ton even a little distance from the port of delivery. Argentina has no coal, and no timber for firewood in the south. Crude oil is coming in fast as a fuel, and as oil is fohnd in the Republic, perhaps we shall some day see really cheap crude oil. In our head factory in Buenos Aires we burn crude oil solely.