DAIRY FARMING.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1315, 13 May 1897, Page 5

DAIRY FARMING.

HOW TO MAKE IT PAY. At a recent meeting of the Woolundnnga branch of the Agricultural Bureau of South Australia, Mr T. H. Prosser, one of the members, read a paper on u Dairy Panning and How" to Make it Pay.” Mr Prosser said ;—- The first thing I would advise anyone to do if he intends to go dairyfarming is to weed out all inferior cows and not to keep heifers from a poor milker; if you cannot sell the calf :£or veal, kill it out of the road ; and not have your cows too small; also obtain an Alderney sire. Where practical I would cross with a Shorthorn. By doing this any of the steer stock -you may keep will be heavier for beef. Every farmer that wishes to successfully carry out dairying must always refrain from over-stocking. If you over stock there is no feed for the cows in February, March, and April, which is the best time to get a good price for butter ; and you need to try to have several cows to calve through those months, not only for the purpose of keeping up the quantity, but it is necessary to keep up the quality of the butter. Every farmer should divide his land into small paddocks, so that the cows can be turned in for a while, and afterwards the dry cattle. Another reason is that you can use the feed to much better advantage when your farm is divided into small paddocks I believe it would pay every farmer to fence all the land he may need for cultivation into 100-acre paddocks, and to put up good fences so as to prevent stock from getting out. I would strongly advise dairy farmers, if they wish to make it pay, not to keep inferior stock. My opinion is a man should have about 1500 acres of land in these parts to carry forty or fifty head of cows, and about twelve horses. In some seasons he could keep double that number, but I am speaking of ordinary seasons. Anyone wishing to run dairy farming profitably must not only have good cows, but study the best way to deal with them, and also study how to make the best of all the products from them It is to every producer’s interest to try and get the best price for bis produce ; then he must produce the best marketable article to do this, and this is only done by studying the business he is engaged in. It is never too late to mend, or too old to learn. If }ou make a good article you need not be frightened to send it to any market. Produce a good article, and do not over stock the local market. If a man wishes to make it pay, he must attend to it himself, if he is milking twenty or thirty cows, as it is too much for any woman to look after, especially in the summer time. While she is looking after it her family is being neglected, or else her life is worried out of her. Just as she wants to see something in the dairy she is called inside, and, of co os-', ihe dairy has to wait, and if it is a hor, day, the cream gets heated and bad butter follows. - A successful butterman must not be afraid of a cow’s teats, or to get his hands a bit greasy. 'Another way to make this business pay is to keep pig 3. Be careful that you get a good sort, and to have the right sizes to kill at the proper time of the year, and only keep as many as can be fed from the offal from the farm, and skim milk. L know some people who buy a pig and then buy the food from the mill or the store to feed it; by the time the pig is fat it cos's about three times as much as it is worth. A dairy farmer should kill at least thirty pigs a year, and milk from twonty to thirty cows; not less than fifteen at any time.

During the discussion which followed, it became apparent that members were of opinion that there had been no improvement in the dairy stock of the district of late years. They favoured crossing the Jersey with the Shorthorn, and considered that in that district a good cow should yield about 370 gallons of milk in eight months, or an average of one and a-lialf gallons per day. They did not consider it advisable to keep cows in milk for a longer period.