DAIRYING IN TARANAKI.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLIII, Issue 117, 15 May 1909, Page 3

DAIRYING IN TARANAKI.

THE INDUSTRY BOOMING.

The receipts'from daifyingin Taranaki this season prove the big money in milk production when the business is'conducted on sound lines, and indicate thai even when lower prices rule for butter and cheese it will still be a highly profitable occupation should the standard of the stock be raised and abundant food supplied them at all seasons of the year. Two striking ■cases of the big returns from dairying have just been supplied the writer. In one case A. Peters, of Mahipu, received £217 for the milk of 127 cows last month. The herd is machine-milked. The return is based on a payment of ll^d Tor butter-fat. In the other case an old man (sixty-five years of age) and his daughter have taken in three years £972 off 32 acres for milk alone. The average for butter-fat (they are supplying the Kaupokonui cheese factory) hag been about ll£d. A proof that; this is a genuine return is contained in the fact that the owner of the property has just been offered by,the lessee £3 an acre rent, the lease being about to fall in, but- the owner, apparently not satisfied with'this offer, is putting the little farm up to public tender. At the present time £2 5s to £2 10s an acre rent is being paid for dairying land in the' rich territory lying between Hawera and Kaupokonui, and this price, it is declared, is not an extravagant figure, considering what the land will do. Three years ago a Wellington constable took up a leasehold farm on the Manaia road at £2 an acre, and so successful has his milking venture proved that he has now persuaded his brother, also a Wellington constable, ,to take up another leasehold farm in ■the locality. This man is paying £1 17s an acre rent for 77 acres, the lease being for seven years. Milk production never presented such excellent prospects in Taranaki as it does at the present moment. The weather now.is phenomenal, more like spring than winter, and there are good stocks of roots and hay in hand, in view of bad weather later on, especially a harsh August, the month dreaded by the Taranaki farmer.