Dairy Produce.

Hastings Standard, Volume V, Issue 1429, 21 January 1901, Page 3

Dairy Produce.

In a commercial review the Post says:—The great expansion that has taken place in the dairy produce trade daring the past two years appears to be due to the relatively better prices ruling for butter and cheese. The average price of the aggregate shipments of butter in 1897 was Bfd per lb, and the total value of the exports that year was £400,445. The price was not such as to encourage the dairy farmers, for in the following year (1898) the exports decreased by 2691ewt. The average price of the shipments of 1898 was 9d per lb, and although there was a decreased output, the aggregate value was £400,480, or £35 more than in 1897. The higher average price, however, stimulated production, and the output of 1899, totalling 134,19ucwt, showed an increase of 38,372cwt, or 40 per cent over the outturn of 1898. The average price of the shipments of 1899 was again 9d per ib, leaving the producers with a fair margin of profit, and leading to a very substantial increase in the production in 1900, when ♦he exports totalled 172,556cwt, or 38,361cwt more than in 1899. The average price of last year's shipments was a shade more than 9d per lb. A stuJy of these facts shows that the industry will thrive while the average price remains at 9d per lb, and there is a belief current that high prices have come to stay—at any rate the valuer of dairy farms are being assessed on the present high average prices of dairy produce, hence we have £2O and £3O per acre paid for dairy properties It is easy to see that if the British markets slumped, which is not only possible but very probable, there will have to be a readjustment of land values in New Zealand, and in the process a good many must suffer.