COMPETITION IN DAIRY PRODUCE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 9808, 1 May 1895, Page 4

COMPETITION IN DAIRY PRODUCE.

In Chambers's Journal for March are given some interesting details concern-', ing the dairying industries in an article j entitled, Our Competitors in Dairy j Produce." While the Royal Commission ! on Agriculture reports that land has gone out of cultivation in Essex, in ! England.owingtothelowpriceof wheat j it is mentioned that a colony of Scotch j farmers, who had been following the I dairy system, had survived the ruin which had overtaken the native agriculturist. According to the English writer, England's competitors m dairy ; produce are Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Holland, France, Canada, United States, Victoria, New Zealand, etc. The gross value of butter from these countries for 1893 was £12,754,235 of cheese, over £5,000,000; of condensed milk, £1,008,855; of margarine, a butter substitute, £3,656,224—a1l of which, save £238,847, came from Holland. Eggs imported amounted to the of nearly four millions sterling. There has been a decline in the import of butter from Holland, France, Canada, and the United States, and of cheese from Holland and the United States. Denmark and Sweden contribute nearly half the imports of butter, the former sending butter to j the value of £5,279,000. There is a 1 gradual decrease of imports both of butter and cheese from the United States; and France, which formerly contributed a fourth of the butter supply, is gradually reducing her contributions of butter and cheese. The colonies which send most dairy produce to England are Canada, Victoria, Queensland, and New Zealand. In Victoria, in three years, the butter export leaped from £35,000 to £400,000, and the value for 1893 was £820,000. The British Dairy Farmers' Association is establishing country schools where instruction is given in everything connected with the dairy ; and at the recent Dairy Exhibition in the Agricultural Hall, at Islington, specimens of cheeses made at these schools were shown as successful imitations of home of the most popular foreign cheeses imported into the country. The dairy is being regarded as the salvation of the English farmer, and owing to the low price of cereals he will be compelled to give up cropping for the production of milk, butter, and cheese. This condition of things will tend to increase the competition for the colonies in the English markets, but what the Danes and Swiss can do in regard to dairy produce, should surely be equally easy of accomplishment by the colonials, who should desire nothing more than a fair field and no favour.