N.Z. MOST ADVANCED IN DAIRYING METHODS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18644, 22 December 1928, Page 14

N.Z. MOST ADVANCED IN DAIRYING METHODS.

AUCKLANDER’S OPINION AFTER WORLD TOUR. (Special to the “Star.”) AUCKLAND, December 21 “Throughout the world there is no single country so advanced in dairying methods as New Zealand. There is no doubt about it,” said Mr O. J. Thedens. an Auckland veterinarian, when interviewed after his world tour. Mr Thedens made the trip primarily in the interests of his professional knowledge, paying particular attention to di>eases among cattle. Leaving Auckland at the end of last January he toured Australia, Egypt, Algeria, Denmark. Holland, Belgium, France, Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Britain In Australia, as in most countries, he found much the same diseases prevalent as in the Dominion, but the Australian Department of Agriculture was an exceedingly active organisation, continually conducting investigations in the direction of the prevention, control and cure of disease, and testing out all new specifics and methods which came under its attention. Yet disease in the Commonwealth was. if anything, more extensive than in New Zealand, largely on account of the attitude of* the Australian dairy farmer, who was remarkably backward in his methods. It might not be too much to say that he was where the dairyman of New Zealand was in 1913. Ilis methods were often crude. Milking machines were only now coming into use, establishing themselves against great prejudice. On the south coast of New South Wales he visited a farm where 600 cows were milked by hand. The owner of the property said he had tried machines, but found them so unsatisfactory that they were discarded, this in face of the fact that labour was more highly paid across the Tasman, and that the wages bill for the handmilking of such a large herd took a heavy toll of the profits. On the Continent he had been most impressed with the wonderful veterinary organisation of Germany, especially as it applied to dairying. There extremely high qualifications were demanded of veterinarians, who were subsidised by the Government, and each allocated a certain district. One such expert whom he met was paid £4OO a year as a retainer or subsidy by the Government, while for all the work he did he earned private fees in the ordinary way, a minimum scale being fixed by the powerful Veterinarians’ Association. The object of State aid was to ensure that all parts of the country had the best available experts for control of disease. The Veterinarian# Association owned large chemical works where were made drugs for the use of members, for each did his own dispensing. As the works existed for purely co-operative reasons, and not to make profits (for there were no dividends) there was no inducement to manufacture anything but tried and itally effective preparations. The Universities’ research centres co-operated and so advanced was the study of cattle diseases in Germany that methods had been found lor the cure of such a widespread and common trouble as sterility. Speaking generally Mr Thedens said that in no country had he found dairying so advanced as it was in New Zealand. Denmark was a possible exception, but the industry was on a smaller scale there. Australia was not alone in regarding the milking machine as a novelty. It was the same in most countries abroad, except that he understood that South America was nowusing thorn extensively. Among the upper classes in every land he found New Zealand well known for its primary produce. If there was one lesson for the Dominion he had learned abroad it was the spirit of cooperation which existed among Danish farmers. The Dominion had co-oper-ation in practice, but still lacked the ardent spirit of mutual help w-nch w;« displayed by the Danes.