Thank you for correcting the text in this article. Your corrections improve Papers Past searches for everyone. See the latest corrections.

This article contains searchable text which was automatically generated and may contain errors. Join the community and correct any errors you spot to help us improve Papers Past.

Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image

CO-OPERATIVE DAIRYING.

AND ITS ATTENDANT ADVANTAGES [By W. Douglas Lysnap..] PART 111. NECESSITY OF MAKING MOST OCT OF BYE PRODUCTS.

(This is a very important element of success affecting the financial result to the fanners, and applies to the calves ae and pig rearing. Regarding the calves I J 3 think the farmers of this district are alive 3e to their real value, but Ido not think they r . are alive to the value of pigs as a bye s . product in dairying, and never until pig ... rearing is more universally gone into up--0 on business lines, and a baeon factory e established in this district, will the farmers y reap the full benefit to be derived under v tliis head. I have been informed on the . very best authority that in the Taranaki e district the farmers make 25 per cent of 5 their profit from pigs alone. No dairy farm is complete there, nor is i it obtaining the full benefit of the in- , dustry, without their proportion of pigs • to the number of cows they milk, and ■ some two years back the farmers there ; found the pigs so profitable that you would find a farmer milking say 40 to 100 , cows only keeping 50r6 of the very best* heifer calves and killing the balance. I learnt that they did this for two reasons. First, they found it more profitable to give the milk to pigs instead of calves, ] and secondly their feed was of too much value to keep a calf until it grew to maturity—it paid them better to keep . their feed for milking cows, and go into the market and give X'T to XlO for an additional cow in full profit when they required it. Since then, I believe, through the value of calves having increased the Taranaki farmers now find it profitable to keep and rear their calves and sell them as weaners, but still so far as possible rearing as many pigs as they can with their spare milk, etc. When the dairy farmers of this district realise that they can increase their profits by another 25 per cent through pigs they and the district as a whole will commence j 1 to reap the full benefit of the dairying in- „ dustry, but not until then. At the same ? time the farmers must understand they , IC must work their pigs ou systematic linos, 11 otherwise they will not make a success of it, and with this object I will later on deal , with the way the Taranaki farmers eon- F duct their pig rearing. It might bo here T, noted that the Stratford Bacon Factory ~ alone lias this year paid <£3.000 to farmers , 1 for pigs. ' >S NECESSITY OF LETTER SELECTION OF DAIRY in

FARMS.

This also is an important element regarding the success in this district of the dairying industry, and it is an object lesson to us here to compare the dairy farms here and their rents with the Taranaki prices. There acems too much of a tendency for the dairy farmers in this district to huddle together on the rich expensive flats, instead of spreading themselves out and getting farms further back along the fringe of the hills, or in the most accessible valleys at the back when land could be leased or purchased at a very much loss, cost, with, in many cases quito as good a result. Cartage is so small an item in dairying tiiat it is hardly worth con- ( sidering as against the question of rents. ! Now the rents paid by dairy farmers in Taranaki district vary from about Ss to j Cl per acre, the great bulk of the farmers - paying about 10s to 10s per acre. I visited i farmer who had a very nice farm about Tree miles out from llawera on a good ! •oad. Ho was milking 190 cows at tho dmo, and he was paying 12s an aero rent ‘ or his farm. So far as I could learn at he time 1 was in Taranaki the dairy 'armors seemed to regard XT an acre rent 1 is the extreme limit a dairy farmer can egitimately pay, and then the property c ■cquiros to ho extra good. I should" say ‘ he dairy land in Taranaki would bo £ •apable of carrying two to three sheep per ■ icre. Now, two sheep an acre land over here is supposed to take four acres to a ■off, so from this a farmer here might udge for himself the comparison of these * ■cuts with the rent he is paying here, for s io should know how many acres it re- 'r [uires of this pasture to run a cow. I was ceently told by a Taranaki settler who l ms a 300 acre farm a few miles from J dawera, which was carrying 3 sheep an " icre, that ho had been ‘offered XlB per icre for it for dairying purposes. Ho icknowlcdgod that he could not make a eturu out of it on this capital by sheep, I .nd although it had been his home for ome 20 odd years he was tempted to sell. If we compare these figures with tho j ent paid by the local dairy farmers it will p so found that they are paying rents from ( 5s to oOs per acre in this district, tho .verage paying, with rates and taxes, bout 25s per acre, while the average r armor in Taranaki will be paying with ates and taxes under 15s per acre. This 3 a very serious difference, and if tho □cal industry is to prosper for the mutual icnelit of all, the dairy farmer must not ie handicapped by too high a rent. At he same time I have little hesitation in aying that the country the dairy farmers t ,rc paying 25s an acre for here is of better r [uality than the Taranaki country, and 1 vould produce a good deal more feed in i ho spring and autumn, but in the winter o ind the middle of summer months I v [uostion if there would be much difference c egarding the carrying capacity, except j hat the local feed would be richer in [uality through our richer grasses. Our •icli flats having such a strong stiff soil, lolds the water more in the winter, and :onscquently stops the growth of tho jrass, and the cattle work up our soil nore than the Taranaki soil in the winter hue. In the extreme heat of summer I hiilie the feed on our tlats will suffer novo from the heat than tho Taranaki . casturc because there is a heavier rainfall * n Taranaki than there is here during the ‘ summer months. So to make tho industry ( thrive here farmers should secure cheaper r land further back. The rich tlats are all ( right for those who are established there, but they will have to go in for artificial feed both summer and winter, and generally work things in a more advanced style so as to give a good margin for themselves. There will be no room for mistakes or experiments on the expensive flats, but there would be on the cheaper country at tho back. It may-be said by the farmers that they cannot get land further back, that the owners will not sell. I absolutely refuse to believe this. There is not an owner of property in this district but would sell or lease his land if offered a rent or price for it which would bring him in a greater gain than he can make out of it by sheep or whatever other purpose he is using it for. A dairy fanner can afford to pay a | much higher rent for land than it is I possible to make out of it by sheep farming. Take tho country that was offered for sale a little time back, and did not sell at the Murewai, portion of the late Mr Woodbine Johnson's property. This land is admirably suited for dairy farming. There is a great deal of the Pakowai property held by the Bank of New Zealand (adjoining Mr Johnson’s property). The Bank no doubt would.sell the property at dairy prices. Then take land about the Ivaraka. There should be no difficulty whatever for dairy farmers to secure sufficient country in that locality to keep a well-equipped factory' in full swing. There is a large extent of country owned by the Assets Company and others, who no doubt would prefer to leave or sell it at dairy prices than hold it for sheep farming, for it is hardly likely they will have any sentimental values attached to the land. It is purely a question of £. s. d. We should have a factory in full swing at the Ivaraka, and again another at Whatatutu. There is a splendid lot of country for dairying puposes just down the river a bit from Whatatutu with some rich river flat almost equal to our Makauri flats that would make splendid dairy farms. Mr W. Cooper has some 3000 or 4000 acres in this locality, and I am sure would readily cut it up for dairy farms if there was any demand for them. Besides other settlers in the vioinity have land well suited for dairying,' And again others could be esiablised at Motu, Waimata, Tolago Bay, besides other parts of the district, and in each of these places I have mentioned, if the dairy fanners would unite and go to work in a proper business way to secure suitable properties in these localities, they would find they would he accommodated, and could almost get any laud they desired so long as it did net interfere with the working of it property

as a whole, for all the owner of the land requires is the best return he can get from his land, and he can get this best by it be- > ing utilised for dairy farms. It is reported that within a radius of 10 miles of Stratford farmers are drawing XIO,OOO a month for their butter fat. Let us take a radius of 10 miles from any of the places I have mentioned and consider what the effect lon the district would be if the fanners in the locality only drew one-fourth of this amount (X‘2500) per month. Spread this over the year, and what would is mean ? It might again be urged that in some of tha localities I have mentioned the farmers would be met with the difficulty that their cows and milk would be on one side of a river, and the factory on the other, with no bridges between, and in time of flood their milk could not be got to the factory, but to those who might think this a difficulty I would point out that such trifles do not stick the Taranaki farmers. It is a common thing to see there in crossing some of the streams and rivers a wire rope stretched across the stream for when tho river is in flood. The milk is sent across tho wire rope and taken charge of on the other side by a - neighbor, or a factory hand, according to arrangement, and so delivered to tho factory. .

Permanent link to this item

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/GIST19010731.2.41

Bibliographic details

Gisborne Times, Volume VI, Issue 171, 31 July 1901, Page 3

Word Count
1,877

CO-OPERATIVE DAIRYING. Gisborne Times, Volume VI, Issue 171, 31 July 1901, Page 3

CO-OPERATIVE DAIRYING. Gisborne Times, Volume VI, Issue 171, 31 July 1901, Page 3

Help

Log in or create a Papers Past website account

Use your Papers Past website account to correct newspaper text.

By creating and using this account you agree to our terms of use.

Log in with RealMe®

If you’ve used a RealMe login somewhere else, you can use it here too. If you don’t already have a username and password, just click Log in and you can choose to create one.


Log in again to continue your work

Your session has expired.

Log in again with RealMe®


Alert