STOCK AND GRAZING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2861, 13 January 1909, Page 7

STOCK AND GRAZING NOTES.

i By Dxotib. W»«kly Stock Sales: f Monthly. Burns-.de, Wednesdays ' Ngapara, first ThursA.kburton, Tuesdays ! day m each month *Mi»«to». Wednesdays W«areka Duntroon, second FiiJunclion, Tuesdays dfty m Fortnightly : Clintou, Palmerston, Bklclutha, Fridays Winton, and "\YaiGore, Tuesdays kouaiti. Oamaru, Tuesdays Periodically : Inrerctrgil., Tuesdays Heriot, Kelso, liyesburn The freezing works at Oamaru opened about three weeks ago, an<l the supply of lambs up to date has been good. It is some years sine© Oamaru had such a good supply of feed for stock at this timo of year. The works opened fully a fortnight before their osudl time, and were amply justified in doing so Prime freezinglambs are bringing 14s to 15> there. Primewethers are scarce, but plentj of fat ewco are ofiLering, and bring from 10s to 12c. There is e\ery prospect that the turnip ciop will be good, as the ground is in good order for sowing. Meantime, fecO is plentiful and rape is doing well. South of Palmerston things are a little later, but; Otago Central has had good ran«=, and all tho district supplying the Burnoiuo Works has had a, good j-uasoii. Rape is doing well and a good turnip crop seems assured. Both feed and lanibs aie plentiful, and_ when in a fortnight h<^nco_ the Burnside Freezing "Works open, tney should be kept busy. j Southland has been favoured with equally gocd conditions, and the same may i b© said of all the South Island— in fact ' of the Dominion as a whole. Dairymen are hrr.ing a good ee^on, and 1 the export of dairy pioduce this season' will almost certainly eclipse all previous records, so far a-s quantity i.s concernpd. Wheat and oats aie- doin,; well, aldiough there is some talk of too much wet in part» of Canterbury for the wheat. This probably i^ just " farmers' growl." It has certainly been a little too wet in some parts for hay-making- and grass seeding, but, allowing for all this the season has been remarkably good so far, and all slicu! 1 be thankful. j Some timo ago I suggested that Sir

• Jo€eph Ward, as a capable administrator, ■ should take the portfolios of Agriculture > and Land?. This has now come to pass. > He has, of course, two, or cay three, under- > studies in Messrs Thomas Mackenzie, i Buddo, and Hogg, all of whom know -, something about agriculture. Although > Sir Joseph probably is less in touch with. ; agriculture than any of the three named, ; I am glad he has become Minister of ■ Agriculture, because it is, in my opinion, i the most important of all the portfolios, • aoid because he is a strong, energetic, and i capable administrator. The department s has in all its branches good men, but in i the past, they never seem to have had [ any lead or backing from the head' of > their department, and the administration ; and work have been feeble, and not by any) s means what the country require. Sir i Joseph Ward should at any rate know the requirements of the South Island, and i should be aware of the fact, for instance, : that the State farms and a lot of work) . carried on in the North Island by the • department are of little or no value to . the South Island. He has a lot to dot that should have been done by his predecessors. I don't think Sir Joseph will let the grass grow under his feet, and I expect to see State Farms established in. the South Island and the long-talked-of j Dairy School and Experimental Station) j become realities ere long. I also hope to see Mr Clifton, chief inspector of etock, given a free hand to work for the improvement of our milk supply, regulations or no regulations, for I am confident Mr Clifton and his staff can do a great deal of good. I even believe the electors of Mataura three years hence- will be> pleased ■with him. Great things are expected fron* Sir Joseph Ward 1 as Minister in charge of out and away the most important Government Department in New Zealand, and I tiust that no disappointment is in store. There are many things to be done that -rton't please evervbod\', but, none the less, they should be done. It would appear that cheese-making for export is not likely to develop extensively | m Australia, especially as the home j «^pa'-ator is coming info use. The home separator has been the weapon used to weaken or drstroy co-operative dairy fac-t-ones in Australia, and it will always be -ourco of weakness to the Australian H.ury trad-e that the co-onerative factory extern i-, not the prevailing one, as .1 <jm "la-d to !=ay is the oase in New Zealand. r>U<o the lower value of Australian butter <o New Zealand largely to the pre■"lent nra^tu-e of horn*'' s enaration. On this subject -the Paatorali^ts' Review ■ays : — AUSTRALIAN CHEESE PRODUCTION. , It is found to be difficult to change from | butter-making to the production of cheese. I Although it h*s been recognised fcr a considerable time that the markets have made cheese a more profitable product than butter, very little progress is being made in any of the States in the development of cheese zn-anu-iacture A good deal has been done, especially m Queensland and Victoria, towards the introduction of the latest manufacturing methods, and proving by testing the export market that there is nothing in our climate or pastuies to prevent the production of firstclass cheese; but the piacticai difficulties in the way of canying out changes upon a large sea c have stood in opposition to any general development of the more profitable industry. With the knowledge that about 2*lb of ches=e can be produced from the. quantity of rm!k lequired to pioduoe lib of butter, dairyfarmers have seen that they are missing I laige piofits by continuing the almost ex-clu-ive manufacture of butter, but whenever the subject of changing is discussed, the ' obstacles in til© way are- found to bs formidable. The general adoption of the home separator has closed large numbers of creaxuenes, and the butter factories, while quite close enough together for cr«aru collection, are m many cases too wide apart for cbeese-nidking, which lnvo.ves carting the milk daily from the farms. The daily carting of milk, even for short distances, is dis-tr.s-teful to suppliers, who have become used to the home separator system. A Large proportion, of the cheese now produced is the output ot farm factories, a, number of large dany farms having been equipped with cheesenidking facilities. These are increasing in numbers, and where co-operative cheese factory's have been established, their output is al<=o incieasirig. It may be expected, moreover, that in the opening up of new dairying districts cheese factories will be established instead of butter factories; but there is so immediate prospect* of an extensive change within the territories of the existing butter factones. The following shipments of dairy produce left New Zealand during December: — -for London — Oorinthic, December 3, 45,072 boxes butter, 18,156 cases cheese; Ruapehu, December 17, 50,389 boxes butter, 18,754 casea cheese ; Waiwera, December 31, 48,467 boxes butter, 20,039 cases cheese. T0ta15— 143,938. boxes butter, 56,949 cases cheese. For West of EnglandDevon, December 29, 3102 boxes butter, 3466 cases cheese. Compared with oqi'responding steamers of last year this shows an increase of 11,437 boxes, equal to 287 tons butter; and 10,355 cases, equal to 690 tons cheese. West of England ehipmeinta show a decrease of 2034 boxes, or 51 tons butter, and 1350 caees, or 90 tons cheese. The increase on the total shipments is j very gratifying, and I fully anticipate that I January, and probably Februaiy and Maich, -will chow corre-pondinjfly laxge ,

• increases ovei last season, as the weather, both in the North and South \lslands, so far has been ail that dairymen could desire. ! The butter market has been a great dis--1 appointment to -buyers and consignors, who evidently entertained ideas of very high prices. Despite the fact that Australian . shipments to the end of December are less ! by 1500 tons of butter than even last season, and far lower than in previous • years, expectations have not been realised. I A London firm, writing under date November 27, reports: — "No one asks more than112s spot for first grade New ZealanxJ butter," and the moment a customer puts in am appearance he is surrounded by a j crowd of eager sellers, who drive him 'away without buying anything in the ex.---i peotation of lower values, in which he is not likely to be disappointed. " Danish ia down five kroner (equal to 5s 6rl) per cwt. Weather stilt April-like, and Home production large, but a more important -factor, perhaps, is the recent high prices, of butter having driven consumers oa to margarine. iThey don't return quickly. Cheese: Quite as stagnant as butter." Since the above was written there has been a slight improvement in the butter, and cheese market, co the cables tell us. The fact is that margarine consumption" is fairly general, and the bulk of the British consumers will stick to it when buttei rules tco high for their pockets. We in New Zealand and Australia, have helped the margarine trade by making: saltless butter for them. I have often said this vras bad policy. As yet we know few particulars as to the fate of the Paparoa's cheese and butter. Both were stowed in No. 3 hold, which took fire, the cheese in the " 'tween " decks and the butter in the lowe hole 1 . It ie said that 16,000 cases were jettisoned, but whether of butter or cheese, or both, is not known at the time of writing. The sufferers' will be the insurance companies, and no factory or shipper insured will be at a. los3. It will be a bad^job far the insuranoe companies, especially Lloyd's, as the value of the dairy produce shipment was over £180,000, and very much of if;

i

»ill be damaged over and above what has been jettisoned. What remains will be handed over to the underwriters, who will p.\y, and do the best they car with it.