BUTTER FAMINE PREDICTED

Greymouth Evening Star, 11 October 1913, Page 5

BUTTER FAMINE PREDICTED

DROUGHT IN ENGLAND. “The long spell of dry weather that we have experienced in England at last shows signs- of breaking, and welcome* showers have fallen in various parts of the country this week,” writes the Loudon correspondent of the Sydney Daily Telegraph under date August 29th. “But even if we get any quantity of rain now it will be too. late to revive the steadily diminishing output of butter. The shrinkage in the supply of home-made butter has been more than counteracted by the large imports from Siberia and even though the Siberian output is now falling olf, our cold stores arc so full of Siberian butter that there is little prospect of any improvement iu values. Australian choicest is certainly about 2s dearer than it was a fortnight ago. but the quotation is really nominal, as the supply is so small. According to some of the papers, London is in.for a “butter famine.” One of them has published the following paragraph :—“The prolonged drought iu the Midlands lias caused a butter famine. Very little butter was offered at the markets yesterday, and prices advanced sensationally, eigbteiipcnco a pound being obtained by sumo dairies—an increase of nearly 50 nor cent on the usual rate at this time of year. 'The farmers complain that little cream is being produced, the milk being poor, in consequence of the thin pasture.” The correspondent adds, “There arc no,signs of a butter famine iu Tooley Street., where the agents. are pointing out that the imports of foreign butter into this country from May Ist to August 23rd have been 6568 tons more than in the corresponding period of 1912.”