AGRICULTURAL AND PASTORAL NEWS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2205, 4 June 1896, Page 14

AGRICULTURAL AND PASTORAL NEWS.

The National Dairy Association of New Zealand have imported some Canadian, English Cheddar, and Scotch Cheddar cheese for exhibition at the winter Bhow of the Otago Agricultural and Pnstoral Asaociation. The cheese came out from Home as general cargo and not in » refrigerator, and has arrived in excellent condition. It was obtained with the view of letting cheese-makers and othera interested in cheese manufacture see what was to be aimed at in the production of cheese in this colony. On the day after the inquiry into fcbo action of the Stock department in prohibiting the Bale of milk from cows belonging to Mr Thomas Johnston, of Flag Swamp, Mr Park, the Government veterinary surgeon, went out 'to Johnston's farm with the object of ascertaining definitely by the application of n test ■whether any of the cattle had tuberculosis, and if they had he intended to slaughter them. It is- said, however, that Johnston resented Mr Park's presence at the farm, and that but for the intervention of some of the farmers in the district there wonld have been violence. The cattle have not yet been slaughtered. Regarding the tick scourge prevalent in Queensland, the Agricultural department think there is little possibility of its spreading to this colony. Tbe few cattle which are imported here-from Australia have to undergo 90 days' quarantine before they are allowed amongst the herds of the colony, and hidaa that are imported have to be well salted or chemically treated. A correspondent sends ths London Standard ft private letter from a well informed Danish writer in relation to the dairy industry of Denmark. On some of the large estates, he says, chiefly owned by the nobility, from 300 to 400 milch cows are kept, half of the animals being timed to calve down in the spring and the other half in November and December. The farmers, "who mostly own their farms, keep from 10 to 50 cows, and the small holders, chiefly peasant; proprietors, milk from one to eight. All alike, as* a rule, send their milk to the co-operative dairies, one of which ia to be found in nearly every village. But although under this sy&tsm the farmers share the entire profits of production, «nd the expenses of transport to other countries are reduced to a minimum, further information is , needed to chow how butter can be produced tit a profit with prices as low as they have teen during, the last two seasons. Even when they were much higher, the Danish farmers were getting only 3£d a gallon for, their milk, with the separated milk back. When bacon sold well, a considerable addition to the meagre returns from new milk was derived from feeding pigs on the separated milk ; but of late the animals oould hardly have psid for the other food, bacon having been oheaper than it was ever known to be before. Under the ciroumstancei, if Danish dairy-farmers can make ends meet it would be intsresting to know how- they do to. The explanation does not lie in any superiority of land or cattle. Pastures in Denmark are generally inferior to those in England, and the yield of milk per cow is certainly not greater. The plan of tethering cattle in the fields and pastures may economise feed to some extent; but there is no evidence of any intense system of cultivating forage crops so as to get the utmost quantity of food from a given area of land. It is true that the corn and other purchased feeding stuff* have been very cheap lately ; but this has been the case equally in England, where it has not paid to make butter to sell in the wholesale market at the price of , Danish buttsr. Wages are a little lower in Denmark than in England, bnt not sufficiently so to make a greaLditfereaca in the expenses of a dairy farm. The only important differences that are known with certainty are the. saving of paid labour almost entirely on the small farms in Denmark, and contentment with a lower standard of living than wonld sat'sfy an English farmer or even an English labourer in a country where wages are comparatively high. Messrs Totbill, Watson, and Co. nond us a copy of "Sutton's Farmers' Year Baok and Graziers' Mar^ual for 1896." The work is devoted to agricultural seeds, and some useful (lints and instructions are given in its pages.