CO-OPERATION AND THE DAIRY FARMER 7 



country on a sound basis. Australia, Canada, and 

 New Zealand have had wonderful results because 

 farmers made a study of the dairy industry. Land 

 has been taken up, homesteads built, emigrants 

 attracted, and families set on the road to health and 

 prosperity. 



In South Africa we are fast coming into line, 

 and it must be so, for we have the climate, the land, 

 and cheap labour. In this connection we may quote 

 the Hon. Mr. Burton in his Budget speech of 

 March 3Oth, 1917, in the Union Parliament. 

 "There was," he said, "satisfactory evidence to 

 show that we were progressing in the direction of 

 supporting ourselves. In 1913 we imported 

 2,890,000 Ibs. of butter, while in 1916 we only 

 imported 267,000 Ibs." There are now, as we 

 said, nearly seventy-three butter factories at work 

 through the seven or eight months of the year when 

 dairying is possible. 



The amount of butter produced in the Union 



for the year 1915-16 was between 6000 and 7000 



'tons as far as can be gathered from available sources, 



but unfortunately there are no reliable figures on 



this point. 



The rise of the dairy industry cannot be attri- 

 buted so much to Government assistance as to 

 private enterprise after all, the best means by 

 which such an industry may be fostered, and in this 

 connection the names of the Hon. Joseph Baynes, 



