FARMING IN ENGLAND.

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXVI, Issue 3441, 10 March 1932, Page 2

FARMING IN ENGLAND.

CHEESE MADE ON FARMS.. CATTLE STALL-FED FOR SIX MONTHS. Interesting reminiscences of dairying in Northern Lancashire were given by Mr. S. Ayrey ,of Mangateparu, in conversation with a representative of the Morrinsville Star. While not being engaged in farming in the Old Country, Mr. Ayrey was in the dairy produce business and bought quantities of butter, cheese, and eggs from the farmers of the district. For the past 20 years Mr. Ayrey has been farming in New Zealand.

Lancashire has a moist climate rather like the North Island, so that dairying is carried on in the rural districts, particularly in the fertile district between Preston and Blackpool known as the Fylde. Most of the milk produced was used for town supply, but on the farms more remote from the towns the milk was converted into butter or cheese by the farmer and his household. The butter was sold to produce buyers at the weekly market, and the cheese, after being stored for several months on the farm, was sold to dealers on the farm or taken to special cheese fairs held every three months. Dairy factories such as exist in New Zealand were then, and even to-day, unknown, each farmer preferring to make and market his own produce. Why English farmers’ butter and cheese commands such a high price is hard for New Zealand farmers to understand. According to Mr. Ayrey there is no comparison between the quality of cheese made on English farms and cheese made in New Zealand factories ,and so the premium that English farmers’ cheese commands was actually a premium for quality. The difference in the quality of the butter was perhaps not so marked, but certain farms that produced splendid butter had worked up a goodwill, and their output was keenly sought after by provision merchants who had a ready sale of it. In his business Mr. Ayrey bought a box of butter every week from one farm many miles away in the Lake District, because of its quality. The butter was packed with a dock leaf between each pat to keep it fresh. Some of the farmers’ butter was not worth buying. On market days hundreds of farmers would come into the Preston market, a big covered-in place, and would pay 3d. for a stand, that is, the right to display their butter and eggs on a bench. The produce buyers would pass up and down and sample and make offers. It took about five hours to dispose of all the produce on sale. Sometimes he would offer a farmer Is. a pound for his butter when the market opened, but the farmer would hold back to see if the price would go up, and in the end might have to sell it for lOd.

To New Zealanders it seems a waste of time for English farmers to personally sell their basket of butter, and waste a whole day in doing so, but the same waste of time occurs when New Zealand farmers spend a day superintending the selling of their pigs at a stock sale, probably for less than they have been offered in the sty by the representative of a bacon company. Only in some directions are New Zealand farmers ahead of their English cousins. Cheese made by the English farmer and his family has the advantage of being made from the milk of one herd, whereas New Zealand cheese is made from a fixture of the milk of many herds, which affects the quality to some extent. An average-sized English farm would perhaps make three cheeses a day. These would be stored on shelves to mature, and it was one person’s job to turn the clieeses every day. When the quarterly cheese fair came round the farmer would take his cheeses to the market place and they would be arranged in groups for judging. There was great rivalry to secure trophies for the best cheese. The buyers sampled the cheeses and bargained with the farmers. Of course a good deal of the cheese was sold on the farm, and so did not find its way into the market place. The cheese buyer would visit the farm and bargain with the farmer for the cheeses he wanted.

Dairy farming in England was a more strenuous business than in New Zealand, although the actual farmer (the man who gowned or rented the farm) might not do much manual work himself. Even on a 60-acre farm there would be half a dozen men and boys, who were kept busy from early morning until late at night. The fariper himself generally kept his coat on.and supervised the others, and perhaps drove the milk waggon to town. But there was plenty of work for all hands in winter, when the cows were milked,

watered and fed in their stalls. For six months, from October to Aprli, the cows would be housed, and for the remaining six months they would run in the fields as here. First thing in the morning each cow was given a bucket of bran or meal while it was being milked, and then led out to get water. From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. the cows fed on hay in their stalls, and then they were milked and fed again. Cleaning out the stables was an important part of the work. The stable manure was swept into-a pit, bricked up at the sides, and the liquid portion was pumped out and distributed over the pasutres in a kind of water cart. The residue was applied and harrowed in to serve the purpose of the artificial manures that New Zealand farmers apply. Much more hay had to be harvested than in New Zealand, where the grass grows for most of the year. On a 60-acre farm about 30 acres had to be cut for hay, or about.three times as much as in this country. As can be imagined, the supplementary feeding which keeps New Zealand farmers fairly busy in the winter months is not such a continuous business as feeding each cow separately would be. Mr. Ayrey went Home 10 years ago, and was half inclined to take up a farm, but he decided that farming was an easier business in New Zealand, where cattle did not have to be stall-fed.