DAIRY FARMING.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 143674, 19 December 1911, Page 4

DAIRY FARMING.

FRENCH METHODS AND CUSTOMS As one who knows British dairyfarming through a lifetime of close contact, and who has had tho privilege for the last two and a half years of investigating tho methods and customs in vogue in Franco, I may be permitted to show what necessity has compelled all through the Kronen provinces. In tho first place, it has compelled tho French dairy-cow proprietors, which practically moans every small owner and occupier of land, to stall-feed their cattle. What grass land there may be on tho holding is always under tho scythe. Grass and its usually accompanying herbage grows very easily and comes along very quickly. In Franco one may see second-crop 'grass in full bloom and odoriferous with pollen by the middle of June in some parts. Here, near where this note is being written, a water meadow on the outskirts of the town has been under its fourth heavy crop of luscious grass. Yet here the late drought has been fully as severe and the heat much more intense than it has been in England. Here necessity has compelled. The land is all practically under special crops, such as tobacco, grapes, and beet, or green-cut, root, and corn. The grass on the meadows is never trampled to waste by the hoofs of the cattle, nor is it otherwise soiled. A French peasant farmer would hold up his hands in holy horror at tho sight of a herd of cows in England on an aftermath. “Why, they arc trampling the good grass to waste/* would be his amazed exclamation; “those mad English I” And possibly, as the old man stooped milking his sheep tho first evening after his return from his trip to rural England, ho would speak to his old wife in similar tones of amazement as ho related tho fact. Yes, tho peasantry of Franco all and always milk their sheep. Why not? Ah! they are epicures in France, and a fibeep’s-milk cheese, which is made in a little pat and costs IRI, is ono of the dainties! Of course, the lambs are not kept on after a week or a month at tho utmost, unless ono or two aro required to replenish the flock of ewes. Even thaso aro hand-reared in the way that one has seen tho cottagers in East Norfolk rear calves—a little slop, a little meal, plenty of water, a pinch of sugar, and a dash of skim milk. The flocks of the peasant farmers may not average a dozen ewes, taking the country through. It is in these “many Httfos” that the French fanner scores. He may have but three or four cows per example, but ho will make as much of and by them as his British confrere will with twice as many. One docs not find perhaps a had milker Here and there, nor now and then a dairyshow champion, but they all yield well, the milk is of good high quality, and the flow is heavy to last. And he invariably sells his milk himself, -either vending it direct in tho nearest town or by co-operating vith a neighbour. When too distant for casting to town he makes butter, or he keeps fewer milk cows.-—R. B. 3rool:e, in a letter from Marseilles :n tho Outlook.