COWS SOLD

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 248, 19 October 1937, Page 8

COWS SOLD

DANGEROUS TREND. FARMERS FAVOUR SHEEP. NEW PLYMOUTH, Oct. 16. Due to the scarcity of labour, and in an endeavour to keep ragwort in check, some Taranaki back country farmers are turning from combined dairying, sheep running and raising of dry stock to the latter two branches of farming, while others, for the same reasons, are drastically reducing their milking cattle and concentrating more on sheep.

Specific examples quoted this morning showed this tendency has already reached proportions that may, if not checked, lead to a rapid decline in the amount of dairy produce, particularly butter, produced in the province. With the recovery in wool prices it would naturally be expected that there would be a tendency for settlers to reduce the size of their dairy herds to pre-slump level, and the .effect would not have been very serious. But now the back country settlers find it so difficult to get labour to carry on dairying that they are not only reducing their output of cream from their farms, but are going out of dairying altogether. The problem of ragwort control also has a bearing, because sheep, if carefully managed, will keep the weed down with no harm to the sheep, whereas the cattle cannot be run on country badly infested with ragwort. With sufficient labour the settler could cut or spray the weed extensively at the proper time, and still be able to graze milking cows. Unable to get men even if he could afford to pay the wages set down by legislation, the farmer has only one option and that is to concentrate on sheep. Keep One Cow. On some eastern district farms to-day milking stock is represented by one cow, kept to supply personal needs. Four settlers in the MakahuPuniwhakau district recently disposed of their dairy herds and will run only sheep. On one road inthe Matau district there is now not one farmer with a dairy herd. Previously all these men milked substantial herds and were responsible for an output acceptable to any factory. The result, it is felt, can only be a drastic reduction in dairy production and dislocation of the present balance between the two types of primary production.