A DRY DAIRY FARM

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22721, 6 November 1935, Page 6

A DRY DAIRY FARM

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —What wonderful promises continue to come from Democrats and from Labour about the great time there is to be, especially for all workmen! One thing they have not told as yet is where the farmer is to find milkers. When 10s to 12s 6d per day is promised all round present-day milkers will be after such wages and will line up with others till they are taken on. That will mean that from half to nine-tenths of most big dairy herds cannot be milked. Dairy returns, instead of increasing as they have been doing, will suddenly drop back. Cows that cannot be milked must be dried off. These, beins turned into the fern gully, will just live by hard battling, but will fill neither the milk can nor the cream can. New Zealand has been called the biggest dairy farm in the world. The procedure I have mentioned will make it a dry dairy farm where cows are not milked and butter and cheese cease to be exported and to bring steady substantial returns. One man who has been at it for a while can handle 10 to 12 cows morning and evening, as well as most "of the necessary farm work. If the country is wise it will not put the temptation of those higher wages

before us. Every one of us will look for the same " good time" as our acouaintances are having. Not one of us may stop to consider the " goo<se that lays such a golden egg " foi the whole country. We pimply are going to have the increased handling of cash that others have. Is there not an old saying about the unwisdom of " swoppin' hosses in the middle of the stream"? —1 am, etc., Milker.