Ang. 3, 190S.] Agricultm^al Gazette of N.S. W. 673 



Dairying in the Argentine. 



Paper read before the Co-operative Butter Factory Managers and 

 Secretaries' Association Conference, 16th April, 1908. 



L. T. MacINNES, 

 Dairy Branch, Department of Agriculture. 



I iiavj: been asked to read a paper at your conference, taking for my theme, 

 '•'■ Dairying in the Argentine Republic." 



This subject, I hope, will prove of interest to you, especially when you take 

 into consideration that South America is a country where work is carried on 

 under exactly similar climatic conditions to those we experience in Australia. 



Their butter factories reach their maximum output during the same months 

 of the 3'ear as ours, and they place their exports on the same markets. 



My observations are the result of some years' stay in the Argentine, during 

 the whole of which time I was actively engaged in the dairy industry — at 

 first amongst the milking herds, afterwards on the manufacturing side — so I 

 think I can claim to have had a good practical experience of their methods 

 of handling dairy matters, from the milking yard up through all the various 

 processes until the manufactured article is placed on the world's mai"kets. 



Modern growth of Dairying. — Modern methods of dairying are quite of 

 recent growth on the River Plate. Prior to 1896 the mechanical separator, 

 the creamery, and the butter factory were practically unknown. Now they 

 are quite up-to-date in these things. 



System of Milking. — But while the manufacturing side of the business has 

 progressed, the sj'stem of handling the milking herds is quite out of date. 

 The Argentine dairyman, whether in a large or small way, generally 

 considers the milking of cows as but an adjunct to fat-stock raising. The 

 opinions of the owner of the station on which I was engaged are typical of 

 the country. He said it paid him if he only cleared working expenses out of 

 his milk — tlie real profits lay in the quietening of his young stock, through 

 constant handling in the yards, for exportation alive to England. That is 

 what the Argentine cattleman always strives for — the re-opening of Britain's 

 ports, closed a few years ago on account of the foot-and-mouth disease, to 

 the live-stock trade. When I Avent to take up my duties first on the station 

 on which I was engaged, the owner wanted to have the establishment run on 

 Australian lines ; but, on hearing that the calves would be hand-reared, lie 

 said that would not suit him at all, so things went on in the old-fashioned 

 way during my stay, except that they saw the benefits of hand-feeding during 

 the winter months. He scouted the idea that the gain in quality and 

 quantity of the milk by hand-rearing the calves would more than make up 

 for the loss in the calves through poddying them. He would not even let me 

 show him in a practical way the profits he was losing by adhering to his old 

 .style of doing things, even though he had some 3,000 milkers on the place. 



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