COST OF DAIRYING.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 659, 28 June 1871, Page 3

COST OF DAIRYING.

TO THE EDITOR OF LAKE WAKATIP MAIL. Sir, —Your correspondent, in writing about the price of milk, and the feeding of cattle, &c., cannot, I think, have the slightest idea of dairying in a place like this, where he says there is such an "extensive commonage," which, if the dairy cattle had to depend upon the grass they get off it for a living, milk would be a higher price even than it is, in consequence of the number of cows it would require to supply the demand. We are all aware that high feeding and stabling, <fcc., will make milk but I should like your correspondent to have a short trial of it this season of the year and I think he would come to the same conclusion as every one else who has tried it—that the milk will cost the dairyman a good deal more than one shilling per quart. A dairy farm might pay, but I scarcely think there is much encouragement at present for one on such a large scale as it would need to be to carry out the great ideas of your correspondent. I must also correct your correspondent in one more little point. As lam given to understand, by one of the principal dairymen, that milk has been sold for sixpence in the winter time when the feed the cattle were getting cost actually more than the milk realized, exclusive of labor. By inserting this in your columns you will oblige, as it may lead to some suggestions that the dairymen might profit by, and perhaps might enable them eventually to sell cheap milk. — I am, tc., Nemo. Queenstown, June 23, 1871.