Taranaki Herald. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1910. THE UNIT IN DAIRYING.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LVIII, Issue 14343, 22 October 1910, Page 2

Taranaki Herald. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1910. THE UNIT IN DAIRYING.

Future progress in dairying in Taranaki depends mainly upon the individual farmer and the individual cow. Co-operation has been carried almost to the limit, so that the cost of manufacture, packing, freezing, and marketing the produce cannot be much further reduced. The Government has clone almost as much as it can do to encourage the industry and to place at the disposal of farmers the best and latest information relating to their industry. It rests now with the individual farmer to improve the quality of the milk and the quantity produced per acre of his land by means of better breeding and selection of his herd and by better farming. There is a decided movement in the direction of the study of the individual value of the units in the herds, but the farmers are somewhat slow in taking it up. They continue to milk a lot of cows which do not pay for their keep and the labour of milking, with the result that they do not get the returns they ought to get. This will continue to be the ease until systematic testing is practised, for no one can with absolute certainty say which are the

''robber” cows in a Herd without a regular'test. We are confident that if such a test were made and continued there would follow a great weeding out on very many farms, A writer in a New South AVales agricultural journal says that the man who feeds and handles a large number of cows, and does not know exactly what each cow is returning him, is in the position of a storekeeper selling goods without knowing if he is making a profit or not. He may keep going on the profit of tho general sales. But there are not many storekeepers that run their business like that in these times, although there are hundreds of dairy farmers who do so. If a farmer decides to put in milking machines he selects the make witii very great care, hut the chances are that he pays little or no attention to ascertaining which of his cows are paying their way and which are not. If he has a herd of fifty cows and only manages to make a bare living out of them, it is obvious that if ten of them are only giving half the amount of butter-fat that another ten give •he will be better off if he gets rid of the former, for they are robbing him instead of paying him. To identify the robbers ho must test and keep records, for the milk-pail is not a safe guide. If he discards ten the remaining forty will give better results because they will be better fed and cared for. With ten less cows to milk the farmer will have more time to devote to the cultivation of his land. .There are hundreds of farms in Taranaki where very little attention is paid to this matter. The cows are grazed year after year on the same pastures, which are steadily wearing out. Tho plough is rarely used on these farms, and little or nothing is put into the soil to restore what is taken out by constant dairying. The days have passed, however, when dairying will pay conducted on those lines. The value of land tends ever upwards, and to get an adequate return there must be a better system of farming. The soil of Taranaki, even the poorest of it, can be made to produce almost anything. The carrying capacity of much of it can be doubled, and even trebled, by good farming. A\ r e have established' one of the very best rural industries —dabying, and in most respects it is curried on upon lines which cannot be much improved, but there is very great room for improvement in the individual, both farmer and cow, and unless that improvement takes place the industry as a whole will make no progress, and when lower prices

for butter and cheese come, as they almost certainly will some day, there will bo very hard times in Taranaki.