DAIRYING PRODUCTIVITY

Taranaki Daily News, 27 September 1933, Page 6

DAIRYING PRODUCTIVITY

NEW ZEALAND'S EXCELLENCE

SURPRISE FOR BRITISH FARMER.

VISIT OF MR. THOMAS BAXTER.

CONTRAST IN CONDITIONS.

A remarkable tribute to the fertility and productivity of the dairying lands of New Zealand was paid by Mr. T. Baxter, who is visiting the country as the representative of the National Fanners Union of England and Wales, and who arrived at New Plymouth last evening. “Where the land is good it seems to be extraordinarily productive,” he said to a Daily News reporter. “The. amount of butter-fat your fanners obtain from the acre would make the mouths of the British farmer water.” Mr. Baxter expressed himself as impressed with New Zealand from a scenic point of view. During the course of the few days he has spent in the North Island he has visited Rotorua, the Wairakei Valley and the Waitonio Caves. It was a wonderful sight to see the tremendous forces of nature unleashed as they are in the bubbling pools of Rotorua,” he said. Wairakei, too, added to his amazement, while he had never seen anything to compare with the glowworm cave and the underground river at Waitonio. There were caves in England, he added, but they were nothing in comparison with those he had. seen. His interest was in the dairying industry, however, he explained, and he was not in New Zealand merely the tourist point of view. What, he had seen of dairying had provided him with many new experiences, for in many ways there was nothing to be compared between the industries of Britain and of New Zealand. The factories of New Zealand were something new to him, for it was only in the south-west counties that butter was manufactured in that way. The greater part of the butter made in England was made in the farmhouses and found a market in the local towns. He himself had not seen any of the few butter factories that existed. • The position was rather similar with cheese, he continued. Most of it was made in the farmhouses, and factory manufac.ure of cheese was only the result of a surplus of milk for liquid consumption, which was then diverted to the making of cheese. There was not a cheese or butter factory in England that bought the farmers’ milk on contract throughout the season for manufacturing purposes as in New Zealand. It was really impossible, he explained, to compare New Zealand with Britain in ,that respect. , Another thing that had impressed him, Mr. Baxter said, was the very genial climate of the country. The winter was not in any way as severe as that of Britain if cattle could lie out all the winter. In England cattle were artificially fed from October 10 to May 10— seven months.