DECREASE IN DAIRY OUTPUT

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 6 March 1935, Page 6

DECREASE IN DAIRY OUTPUT

KAUPOKQNUI COMPANY’S RETURNS. EFFECT OF DRY WEATHER. The effect of the prolonged dry spell of ho-t, dry weather, which ended with the welcome rains last week, is startlingly illustrated by the manufacturing returns for February of the Kaupokonui Dairy Company. Comparing the “make” in February this year with February last year, the fall is about 34 per cent, and the make at the end of February was about 30 per cent, less than the beginning of the month.

While it is hoped that the recent rains will hold up the supply for a while, it is too late in the season for the dairy herds to recover to any extent and th© best that can be hoped for is a normal autumn reduction, with the present reduced quantities as a starting point. When it is stated that the milk supplied on the last day of February this year is equivalent to that supplied on April 29 last year, practically the end of the milking season, it is not to be wondered at that the farmer is anxiously adding up his butterfat returns. The position is not improved by the fact that a considerable quantity of winter fodder has already been fed out and the remaining feed will, in some cases, have to be carefully husbanded through the coming winter and early spring. •

CATERPILLAR PLAGUE. Some farmers who were depending on their autumn feed during the dry spell have had a further setback, quite a few of the maize crops in the districts having suffered by the ravages of the caterpillar. One crop of about three acres on the Rama Road was completely stripped in a day and a night.