OUTLOOK FOE DAIRYING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18730, 9 June 1924, Page 9

OUTLOOK FOE DAIRYING.

"NO MORI- HIGH PRICES."

GOOD PROSPECTS AHEAD.

SMALLER HOLDINGS URGED.

fBX TELT.GRAPH. OWN CORRESPONDENT. ]

HAMILTON, Saturday.

*' The time for high prices for dairy produce has passed," said Mr. A. J. Sinclair, acting-manager of the New Zealand Co-operative Dairy Co., Ltd.,' at a meeting of suppliers at Huntly last evening. The speaker said that ho * believed that the prospects for the dairying industry in New Zealand were all right so long as the quality was maintained. There would be increasing competition from Siberia and tho Argentine, but the New Zealand producer could find new markets in the East and in the United States in spite of the high tariff of 4d per lb. imposed by the latter country on imported butter. If the dairy farmers received Is 6d per lb. for their cream in future, that was all they could expect to get. If tho farmer was hanging on to his property in the hopo of the price rising to Is 9d and over, he was doomed to disappointment.

Two serious weaknesses existed in connection "with the New Zealand dairy farmer's business, said Mr. Sinclair. In the first place .he was holding too much land. It would be much better if farms were reduced to from 100 to 150 .acres per man so that the farmer, with the assistance of his wife and family, could work it himself. Too few dairyfarmers kept a systematic check on the butter-fat production of individual cows. The first defect would be remedied, added Mr. Sinclair, only when investors turned their ■ attention again to broad acres. It was depressing, he said, to note the large sums of money now being invested quite unwarrantedly in small suburban shops and properties in Auckland city j but he believed this boom would pass, and that investors would realise before long, that the dairy farms of tho Auckland province, not only offered the soundest possible security, but also that on their further development rested the prosperity of Auckland city itself. He urged dairy-farmers to hasten this time by systematic herdtesting, and concluded by expressing the hope thai the 25 herd-testing groups of his company, in which 30,000 cows were now under test, would be doubled next season.