Co-operative Dairying.

Gisborne Times, Volume VI, Issue 186, 14 August 1901, Page 3

Co-operative Dairying.

(To the Editor of tho Times.) Sir, —Will you kindly reprint the subjoined extract from tho Auckland Weekly News. —I am etc., Oxe Interested.

CO-OPERATIVE DAIRYING AT CAMBRIDGE The Cambridge Borough Chambers were packed to overflowing with farmers. Some of them appeared to be out for tho day, while others had just left their day’s work to attend the meeting. As ono glanced round the room and took stock of the 40 stalwart men, one could not help thinking what a tough lot of costumers such would prove if called on to defend their homes against a foreign foe. They were men who had made up their minds, and one could see from tho firm set of their jaws that it would take more than ordinary means to turn them from their purpose. They were men who had been finding nine-tenths of the capital, in tho shape of cows, etc., for carrying on tho dairying industry, and they had decided that they might as well find tho other tenth and make one job of it. They had concluded that if there was any profit in the business it would fit better in their pockets than in those of anyone else, hence the meeting. Presently Mr F. W. Buckland entered the room, bearing in his hands a formidable roll of documents, which proved to be the articles of association for the new co-operative company. On being invited by the chairman to read tho deeds old W. F. ruled off long sentences at such a continuous rato that one or two of his more sporting hearers were prepared to lay any odds that he would never die of lungworm. Then the articles were signed, but when it was announced that financial arrangements had been made with the Bank of New Zealand many countenances dropped three-point-six. “I did hope,” said one man, “ that we could have got auother bank here. Waikato will never be thought anything of by outsiders so long as it appears we can only support ono bank." “ No,” said another farmer, “ hitherto Waikato has been managed, from a financial point of view, like a farm that has been continually cropped without manure.” But there was nothing for it, so the bank joint and several guarantee bond was signed with the best grace possible. The business of the meeting being’ over, the proprietors of the new company were free to talk'over affairs. It was instructive to listen to stray sentences falling from the lips of men who could look back to former days of co-operative disaster in Waikato—disaster which threw the district back ten years. If past experience sometimes makes a man poor it also makes him careful, aud whatever the fate of co-operative dairying at Hautapu it will not be the fault of members of the new company if the present venture does not prove one of the most successful in the Colony. The factory is well situated in the best of districts, and has over a 1000 cows to start on. Hitherto farmers have been “ cow-spankers ” only ; now they are factory proprietors, with 40 pairs of eyes on the look-out for mistakes and improvements in management. In the words of farmer Blackman, whose inimitable twang soared above the other men’s Voices as they filed out of the room, “ By co-operation we get whatever there is, and whatever there isn’t we don’t want.”