Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, THURSDAY, APRIL. 11, 1901 BUTTER AND GOLD.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 9118, 11 April 1901, Page 2

Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, THURSDAY, APRIL. 11, 1901 BUTTER AND GOLD.

If there was one thing more than another that impressed itself on the mind of the Hon. T. Duncan during his visit to this district it was the suitability "of the country that he saw for the dairying industry. It j s for that reason that we regret he should have curtailed his visit and omitted to inspect the Motu and other outlying portions of the East Coast. We are confident that the Minister would have pronounced an equally emphatic opinion as he did when he .declared that for dairying purposes our flats were- "better than Taranaki," had he gone to the back country and seen its vast extent and evident adaptability for the industry .mentioned. By personal inspection of the country Mr Duncan would have understood m a much better manner than he could by heai-say I or official reports the need for prose-, cuting the railway and giving better.roajl communication, so that this industry may -be firmly and properly established. Had he visited Tolaga Bay, as we hoped he would, lie would have also seen there a district most suited for. dairying, add he must have appreciated the that comes from there . for land for setj tlement. Altogether, we think that ; the member for the district, m his desire j to get away to Auckland and Itotorua to make arrangements for a function two months ahead, neglected a golden opportunity, when he had the Minister of Lands m the district, of showing ■' him thoroughly through it. We cannot believe that there were- affairs of State of suoh great urgency calling for Mr Duncan s instant return to Wellington. However, the purpose .of the present article i* not to chide Ministers, but to again put/ before our readers the importance of the milch cow. What Mr Duncan said of Poverty Bar country, Mr Greville, the editor of the New Zealand DairyItuui, who is on a lecturing tour "m Hawke's Bay, has be«n telling the settlers there of some of their land. It is much too good for sheep, ; and experimeflits have shown what splendid results it can give from dairying. He said he was satisfied that far better returns could be got from dairying m that district than m any other m the colony, even m the present stronghold of the industry, m the district round Mount Egmont. He had m his possession the returns , for one year of one milk producer at Hastings, partly from the Heretaunga Company and partly from the Mahora factory, and from these he found that the farmer had mode over £10 per cow for the year. ;He (the speaker) wns confident such results had not been attained by any other supplier to any butter factory m th» colony. -Mr Greville dealt with the great value of the industry to tho country. The butter export from Denmark last year, he pointed out, was equal to 66£ tons of gold at £4 per ounce, and New, Zealand's output last year, exclusive of the vast amount used for consumption m the colony, was equal m value to 10£ tons of gold. To this Hawke's Bay (and^we might say Poverty Bay) contributed only a few thousand pounds. In. ' Norsewood and, Dannevirke, he said, dairying had made, the settlers practically independent, and it would do the same round Hastings.^ Picked cows could be made to produce butter worth £9 per cow, and this, with the calf and pig which could be raised on the skim milk, would give an additional yield of £12L^jpei cow; and if paid labor had tobe employed, SA per cow would cover -. the cost of thai, leaving >ne fanner £8 par cow per annum. He did not think their land could be so . profitably employed m any other wayp for ' with n portion of their land m winter feed they could carry a cow to the acre. Again comparing the East and West' Coasts, Mr Greville stated that m the period November to March Taranaki turned out an 'almost incredible quantity of butter from the factories, and he would tell theni that Taranaki was not m it with the land about Hastings, The laud there, would not hold water, but the rainfall was good and \tlie grass luxuriant, which enabled the district to have the largest turnout m the colony for daily products ; but this was all could bn said of it. Dealing with the common objection raised against the dairying industrv_to the effect that there was no money m ifr unless a man had a large family lo'hdo the work, he assured them this was a great fallacy,' as he knew of several instances where dairy • fanners jxtid * wages to every worker m their employ, and yet made money. ■ He knew of one man with 600 cows, 500 of which were always m milk,', who ; had no family, and yet everything on or about the' farm was paid. for, the proprietor reaping a good profit. In Victoria he knew one mun with 1200 cows, and m New South Wales h<s knew oi anothe farmer running 1500 cows, and it Aras scarcely necessary to say that these gentlemen's families did not milk. In Taranaki a map seven years of age, with 132 cows milking, who- retired from business ; with a good deal of money, afier trying agricultural farming, went liack to the dairying as the most profitable investment; Some people said it w.as no use milking a few cows, but his experience told him that, nb matter how many cows a man wasm.Uking, he thought he should be milking more. " There were some pessimists who argued that the bottom might fall out of the industry, but he would tell them that, although the price of farm produce has been ou the down grade. for years, the price of butter has been always maintained. In the prosperous year of 1899 the price of butter was higher than for ten years previous, but even during the slump butter commanded a firm position m the markets. Some time ago the cables quoted Australian butter, at 110s and ihe ' New Zealand product at from 96s to 98s, but now this colony's butter beat Australia, and ranked next to the Danish, which had the advantage .of being fl-esh, and, m the course of -time, he hoped to see us outstrip even the Danish article. # ;.