IN THE ARGENTINE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19350, 10 December 1924, Page 5

IN THE ARGENTINE.

THE DAIRYING • T STRY. “ NO GREAT ADVANCE FOR YEARS TO COME.” Mt C E. Robertson, who is well known in Southland and who has just returned from a. visit to South America, informed a Dominion representative that at the time ot hia visit the Argentine was steadily recovering irom the slump, or, as it was termed there, the “crisis,” and aa prices for beef had advanced considerably, and new markets were opening up on the European Continent, the country was looking forward to a period of prosperity. During the crisis, dairying had been turned to as a more profitable system of farming than cattle raising and fattening, but owing to the improved position of the beef market and the really unsatisfactory lalbour for this technical class of farming, Mr Robertson said ho was of the opinion that no great advance would he made in dairying for some years to come. Up to the present the co-operative factory QystoDi HacL not boon st cuccoss, but tucro were some huge proprietary concerns which engaged in the producing as well as in the manufacturing business. One of these concerns milked on one property 7000 head of Friesian cattle, and another (founded by Mr Reynolds, formerly of Cambridge, New Zealand), milked on its properties nearly 11,000 dairy Shorthorns. Machine-milking was not practised, and the cows were only milked once a day, the calves running with the cows. The country was an amazingly rich agricultural one, and there were many very large concerns working huge tracts of land. One company, for example, ran 1,200,000 sheep, the largest cattle breeder owned 200,000 breeding cows, and quite a number of the Shorthorn breeders bred and sold 1000 bulls and over a. year; one pig breeder bred and fattened 12,000 pigs annually. Lines of one-brand steers fat at two years and nine months had been sold by one breeder in successive years in drafts of 10,200 and 12,500. The Shorthorn cattle were the finest in the world, hut the dairy cattle and sheep could be vastly improved upon. The prospects for extending the trade in New Zealand sheep were excellent, and in time there would he a demand for dairy cattle. Stock of a high standard was required, and in their own interests the breed societies would require to insist upon their inspectors passing. nothing for export except stock of a really creditable class. Quite a number of shipments of rough-looking sheep had been made, and had called forth severe criticism. The market required quality from New Zealand. English breeders had loaded the market with the other kind—in fact, at a joint sale of English Romneys and Lincolns following on the exhibition, not a single bid was forthcoming. After spending two months in South America, Mr Robertson proceeded to the United States and Canada, and while there attended the National Horse Show at New York, and the Pacific International Live Stock Exposition at Portland.