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tariffs is adopted for both Great Britain and her colonies the better. lam glad indeed to note that our Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. Richard Seddon, has been one of the first to move in the direction of taxing foreign goods shipped into New Zealand, and of gaining a preference for some of that colony's products which are shipped to British markets. Dairying in the Argentine. In dealing with dairying in the Argentine Republic, I propose to speak more on the practical side of the question, for the reason that most New-Zealanders interested in this industry have already become acquainted with the theoretical part of what the Argentine is doing in this branch of agriculture, through the Australasian agricultural papers. In the Argentine Republic only a very few years ago the dairy industry had practically no existence. The milk of the millions of cows which were in the country was utilised for no other purpose than for raising the calves. It must, however, be remembered that the Argentinos have always been producers of meat and hides, and even in the early days of the country they bred many good beef cattle. At the present day we find the milk-supply business of many of the small towns, and even the suburbs of the large cities, such as Buenos Aires, carried on in a very primitive fashion. The milk for city and town supply is in some cases brought in in cans on horseback, the cans being slung at each side of the horse, and the motion of the horse causes the milk to be churned, thereby producing a soft butter. This butter is collected or gathered and sold to the clients; and the milk, which can hardly be termed buttermilk, is also sold at a fair price, owing to the large percentage of fat still left in it. Many of the (native) Spanish people, strange to say, yet prefer this mushy soft butter to a good article produced in a butter-factory. Another system of reaching the city milk-purchaser with what they term a pure milk is by driving the cows around the streets and milking them into small graduating measures or tin mugs in front of the houses. The cow is very often stopped a dozen times, or at least the process is carried out in front of a dozen purchaser s premises. The calf must always be tied to the leg of the cow, otherwise the cow will not give down her milk—so the owner of the cow claims. All this, however, is being gradually done away with, particularly in the large City of Buenos Aires. In the latter city you will now find many fine places for drinking milk, milk shakes, &c. These places, as a rule, are painted white inside and are kept scrupulously clean. The milk handled by the milk-shops is sent in from the large estancias (farms) in the country. They have also a few factories where milk is pasteurised and sterilised for city supply; and there is at the present time a large company being formed, and an enormous building is being erected for the purpose of pasteurising and sterilising milk, which will serve nearly the whole of the City of Buenos Aires. I was also informed that it is proposed to manufacture maternised milk. Before dealing with the actual butter-making part of the business, I shall describe roughly the methods of milking which prevail in most milking districts of the Argentine. The herds, large or small, are driven into what may be called milking-yards, which are fenced with wire, generally a special woven wire manufactured in the republic. Nearly all of the dairy-cows in that great republic are milked with the calf by the mother's side; as a rule, it is tied to the leg of the cow. Although the milking-yards are not very large, you will very often find large herds of cows milked in them. The animals are milked for a great length of time iv the same yards, until 8 in. or 10 in. of manure collects. They are then changed to another place, and this manure is allowed to dry, after which it is cut into squares and stacked up like wood, and utilised for fuel. This system is carried on in districts where wood is scarce and coal dear. As can be imagined, after a heavy rainstorm, it is not a very pleasant business to milk cows in a milking-yard such as described above. Of course, at a few of the " estancias " they have fairly decent places for milking. There are two systems of milking; at least, two of them I have seen personally, and these systems seem to prevail nearly all over the milking districts of the Argentine. The idea seems to prevail amongst the native people that if the calf is taken away from the mother she will not give down her milk, and will, therefore, be rendered useless as a milker. I was astonished to find the people of the Argentine carrying on the milking business in this crude manner. When in Africa, I was not surprised to see the Kaffirs in Natal milking their cows in nearly the same manner as the majority of the cows in the Argentine are milked. The Kaffirs in Natal firmly believe that no cow will give milk unless the calf is with her at the time the milking takes place. The slight difference between the Kaffir system and that which is in vogue in the Argentine is that the Kaffir allows the calf to suck whenever he can get a chance during the process of milking. As stated above there are two systems of milking in the Argentine. One is to allow the calf to suck a portion of the milk from the mother before the operator begins the milking process. After the calf has taken his share of the milk, he is tied to the mother out of reach of the udder. The other system, and one which is generally adopted, is to milk about two-thirds of the milk from the cow, and then to unfasten the calf and allow it to suck the balance. This latter portion of the milk, which, as a rule, would be about one-third of the milking, and which also contains the largest amount of butter-fat, the calf gets. I am quite sure that if this portion of the milk of the bulk of the Argentine cows was tested, it would be found to contain 5J to 7 per cent, of butter-fat. Butter-fat at lOd. per pound is pretty expensive feed for raising calves, particularly where a farmer is aiming to dairy for a profit. The milking is done largely throughout the dairying districts by Bastous; very few of the native " Spanish " people care to indulge in this kind of labour. The Bastous, I am informed, emanated from the southern part of France. They are said to be a very industrious people, and make first-class milking-hands. They seem a contented people, and although they do not have the same facilities for entertaining as the people in the cities do, they always seem to have their own fun on particular holidays. The homes of the Bastous on the farms or estancias are not very