DAIRYING IN AUCKLAND

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 15141, 4 November 1912, Page 4

DAIRYING IN AUCKLAND

A RECORD OF PROGRESS. IMMENSE POSSIBILITIES. THE INDTJSTBRY IN ITS INFANCY". No. I. BY OUR SPECIAL COMMISSIONER. I have just had a tour through the chief dairying district* in the Auckland province, and have seen something of what the butter and cheese industries are doing in the development of this part of Ne-v Zea- ! land, and have gained some idea of their future possibilities. Auckland has been doubling its exports of dairy produce every five years, until now the value of these products shipped to overseas markets totals over £700,000 each season, whilst the local market consumes nearly £400,000, without counting milk and cream and the produce of private dairies. This is not bad for a province which but a- few years ago was deemed to be utterly unsuited for dairying, but that is not the main point. Auckland's dairying industry has only just commenced, and dairying is going to da more

for Auckland than most people ran vet realise.

I cannot, imagine how Auckland could make any great progress without the cow. Sheepfarming would never give the province any great amount of wealth, coal and gold mining have their limitations, and this is not a grain-growing province. We are not likely to become a great manufacturing country for another century or two, and wo need not regret the- fact. Whilst we can root a numerous and energetic population to the soil and keep them profitably employed, we shall build up a much liner nation than if we crowded them into factories to compete in the world's markets with the trained workers of the old world, or with the inevitable cheap labour of China and Japan. Pre-eminent Superiority. Our climate and our soils have given us pre-eminent superiority in pastoral agriculture, and there are absolutely illimitable markets for the products that we can raiseso easily and so well. The South Island has grown prosperous on wool and frozen lamb, Auckland will grow immensely more wealthy on butter and cheese. The great problem before the world is food—how to get it, how to produce it. The industrial populations of civilised counI tries arc growing by millions every year ; | they are demanding more and better food, and they are prepared to pay for it. One of the great foods of the world is supplied by the cow. Every increase in the human nice makes the food question more im- ; portant. We have seen within a short span of years the people of the United States forget that boast of their's, "We feed the world," and grow afraid at the task of feeding themselves. Great Britain yearly demands more meat and grain and dairy produce, and continental countries are rioting to secure similar importations. Every year the flocks of the world decrease by millions, almost every vear beef advances in value. With every increase in population, with every advance in the price of meat, the demand for dairy produce grows. This gives Auckland its great opportunity, and it will be the fault of Aucklanders "if thev do not seize it.

It has often surprised ice when'talking with Auckland citizens to find. little they really know about dairying, and how much less they know about the potentialities of their own province. Most city people believe dairying to be a dirty disagreeable work, the refuge of poor farmers without capital. I doubt if more than one or two of the thousands of young men turned out yearly from our schools and colleges dare announce an intention of going into milk farming. If they did they would be considered lacking in ambition and doomed to a life of toil. Our smart youths arc being trained in yearly increasing numbers as law vers, doctors, school teachers, electric or ' marine engineers, mining experts, bankers, and in every line of trade and commerce. The State, or the Educational Department, has made absolutely no provision as yet for teaching the art of dairying, yet dairying is rapidly becoming our greatest industry, and in the future, well, I have already indicated its possibilities. The State and Dairying. Yes, dairying under some conditions is a dirty, toilsome, somewhat degrading industry. I havo seen even within the last week or two heavy-booted men. and women, too, tramping through evil mud to the niilkiug-shed. I have seen boys and girls out in those hurtling rain squalls wo had recently, driving cows iu trom the paddocks. We have the evidence of teachers and persons as to the bad effect dairying has had and is having on school children. I must, confess, though, that whilst 1, have been many times through most of the dairying districts in New Zealand I have seen but little of the baneful results of milking slavery. I am certain that the children of our dairying districts would compare well with those of any other dip

I triet, and they would give big odds to the I children <>T many of our city "schools physically and mentally heat them. After all, if there, is undue toil and degradation in dairying, it is largely the fault of our leaders. " Bad roads and bad land legislation are accountable for ninetenths of the troubles that dairy fanners suffer. If the State would educate the lining generation of dairy farmers along practical scientific, lines, and give them opportunities of securing laud and capital to work it and railways and roads to carry their produce away, then; would lie no child slavery on dairy farms. Child labour is the result of poverty and ignorance. A little while ago [ visited a stretch of dairying country opened not. three years fry the Government. The land had'cost the Government a little, more than £1 10s an acre. The would-be daily farmers had paid from £2 to £8 an acre for it. and the roads (which the settlers bad' paid for) were indescribable bogs. I met a man on one of them carrying on his shoulder* a, 201b can of cream, because it was not safe to drive a horse along the public highway. Moreover, though tho Government demanded rent in 'advance, and though the settlers weie improving the value of State land, it could not, or would not, either .make them rowls or advance them capital to enable the land to be profitably worked. That is the sort of thing that makes dairying degrading and that is responsible for the so-called 'child slavery. Dairying Just Commencing. But, as J have said, dairying is only just commencing, yet already 'on nine dairy farms out of ten work is carried out on moderately pleasant lines. The milking machine has relieved the big farm from much or the drudgery, the home-separation system has done much for the small farmer and m time dairying may become an occupation even for refined young ladies. As a matter of fact, some of our highly-edu-cated young women might earn a vcrv good income, and have quite nice work, i'f thev would invest in a, small herd of high-class dairy cows, or two or three of them might work a nice grass farm in co-operation A herd of mild-eyed pedigreed Jerseys is the pride of more than cue nobly-born '.English lady, and a capable New Zealand girl could with her own hands earn enou'di from good cows to enable her to live In high comfort. While, if she wero ambitious, she could in a season or two start an electric milking machine .with silver teat-cups.

The dairying industry., like all other great and growing industries in the hands of intelligent and enterprising, people, is becoming sectionaiised and specialised, The central dairy factory w already dealing with tho finished product, the dairy farmer simply supplies the milk or cream. Many farmers do n* even breed their own cows. This is becoming a special branch of work and a most important branch, too The man who can raise cows which will give four or five hundred pounds of butter-fat in tho season is a greater benefactor to the country than the man who can breed crack racehorses, but, as yet, he does not make as much money or receive so much kudos. The dairying industry will not come into its proper position until the high-bred cow ranks above the horse, and this is a fact which the agricultural and pastoral associations of the country at least might take to heart. I know it is difficult to make city people interested in anything connected with farming, and dairying to them seems the least attractive of all forms of farming. This, however, is simply because it is the least' understood. The general public do not vet realise that dairying must be Auckland's leading industry, that on it depends their own prosperity, that "without it, there can lie no great progress in manufacturing or trading, and they must .realise tlii«t dairying cannot advance as it should do unless the settler has access to the land, good roads, arterial railways, and the use of capital and credit. These are things which the public, cither individually or through their leaders, can help the farmer to obtain, and by helping him they help themselves, for it is through the profitable working of land that we obtain our national wealth, and there is more wealth still lying dormant in the shape of butter-fat in Auckland's idle lands and partly-worked

farms than has ever been won from all our coal and gold mines, from all our timber forests and gumfields, or from every other form of industry.