MINUTES OF EVIDENCE. 



57 



27 Auguit, my.] 



MR. P. W. 



[Continued. 



6. d. 



Increase per week 6 days, 1 4s. ... 4 per day. 

 Add increase Saturday and Sunday 10 



Equals 80 per annum. 

 (This concludes the evidence-in-chief.) 



Chairman: Dr. Douglas will begin the questions. 



6757. Dr. Douglas : You are, to a very large ex- 

 tent, a dairy farmer, I think? Yes. 



6758. Your chief product is milk, is it not? Yes. 



6759. I see the total size of your farm is 141 acres, 

 of which 37 acres is cow pasture. Do you find that 

 a sufficient amount of pasture ; or do you supplement 

 it largely? The shortage of pasture is due chiefly to 

 the War Executive begging us to plough all the land 

 that we could plough ; and we have had to manage 

 with as little pasture as possible and help them as 

 much as possible with artificials, trusting to the 

 aftermath to help us out. 



6760. But it is less pasture than you would wishr 

 Yes. 



6761. And you do have to supplement it by feeding 

 all summer? Yes. very heavily. 



6762. Then I come to your returns. I see you 

 milk 35 cows? Yes. 



6763. Your total of milk from the 1st May, 1918, to 

 the 1st May, 1919, was about 21,000 gallons. Was 

 that given by these 36 cows? -Yes. 



6764. And was that about 600 gallons for each cow .- 

 I change my cows very frequently ; they are not 

 all the same cows. 



6765. Do you breed your own young atock? A 

 few of them. 



6766. But I take it you do not keep a cow during 

 her dry period, or at all events you do not carry on 

 the same cow from year to year? No; I change about 

 one-third of them as a rule, not always. 



6767. So this represents not simply a lactation 

 from each of 35 cows; but it represents that, supple- 

 mented by part of the lactation of other cows pro- 

 duce? Yes. 



6768. So that the total yield per cow is not 600 

 gallons? I have not worked it out. 



6769. Your results over the year show a loss of 

 something like 10 a cow. Have you any previous 

 figures to compare that with I mean pre-war figures? 

 No. This is the only year I have figured out. 



6770. May I take it that you have been conducting 

 a dairy on these same lines more or less for some 

 time? Have you been on your present farm for some 

 time? I have been on the present farm four years 

 last March. 



6771. And previously were you dairying? I was 

 10 years in Nottingham on an arable farm there; but 

 previous to that I had lived on a dairy farm all my 

 life. 



6772. You were conducting this dairy four years 

 ago? Yes. 



6773. Has your experience during the previous 

 years been the same financially, that you have lost 

 money on your dairy? No, much better. This last 

 year has been very exceptional. 



6774. But that was before the drought of this 

 summer. These figures do not Include the drought 

 of the present summer? No; they include from May, 

 1918, to May, 1919. 



6775. Then why do you think the dairy has been 

 so much less profitable during that period than it was 

 before? Last summer we were short of pasture. In 

 the August of last ynr we had a very unfavourable 

 season for producing milk. We had n lot of wet 

 weather about August, and I had rather a big loss 

 in cattle just abont that time. The cows broke to 

 the bull did not come quite under notice as they 

 should have done at the back end, and the COWR 

 were not in condition to sell off without great loss 

 nnc! refilling them. My dairy should bo kept up at 



two-thirds in the winter to what it is in the 

 siiminor -> F could not change, ta my cowsheds were 

 full up and T had to use a tremendous lot of com 

 ;md artificial feeding. 



6776. Generally, do you wish us to take it that 

 there were a number of special circumstances con- 

 nected with this year's working, so that it is not 

 really representative? Did all these unfortunate 

 things happen to other people as well? Yes. 



6777. Some of them, but not all? I was not the 

 only one in our district who had a bad time of it the 

 latter part of last year. 



6778. Really on account of prices being inadequate? 

 Yes. 



IS779. How do you make up the depreciation or 

 loss on cows which you mention in your third para- 

 graph? Was that normal or special? Was it accidents 

 of some kind? Is it an actual figure or calculation, 

 the 106? I will tell you the basis I worked on. 

 During that period, that is, from May to the end of 

 September, I bought six cows for 288 10s., the 

 average cost of which was 48 le. 8d. I sold three 

 for 38 5s. during last Dimmer. Three of those I 

 bought in at the average of 48 Is. 8d. would realise 

 114 os. The three 1 sold for 38 5s. deducted from 

 the 144 leaves a balance of 106. I might add to 

 that statement, that in the latter part of August I 

 had a very good cow, for which I had given 40 the 

 year previous when cows were much cheaper. I 

 found her with a very bad cold a few days off calving. 

 She had pneumonia, and she died in a few hours. 

 Then a little previous I lost another cow through 

 a bad udder. These are the things we have to contend 

 with. 



6780. Then these represent incidental accidents that 

 happen? .The actual loss in that period on cows. 



6781. On the next page you have, " Home-grown 

 fodder, including hay, straw and roots." How are 

 those charged? The home-grown fodder is charged 

 at 7 15s. per ton. It was worth 8 at the station, 

 and I only live a mile away. 



6782. You charged it at rather less than market 

 price? Yes, I have charged 7 15s. 



6783. And straw ? Straw, 4 a ton. 



6784. That was in excess of the restricted price, was 

 it not? Later on I had to pay 85s. I bought a lot 

 of oat straw later on. 



6786. So that you average it between the 3 15s. 

 to which you were entitled for your own and the 

 4 5s. you paid? -Yes. 



6786. Have you or have other dairymen in your 

 district, considered the question that you have heard 

 put to-day, about the possibility of a Government 

 guarantee for cheese? Cheese does not concern me 

 at all. 



(1787. Vo ; but the price of cheese very closely 

 nnVcts the price of milk, does it not? Yes, it does. 



6788. If cheese was at a high price during thfl 

 -spring and summer months, that absorbs a consider- 

 able amount of milk and takes it out of market 

 competition P Yes, that is true. 



6789. In that way it is suggested that at that 

 period of the year the price of milk might be steadied 

 if the Government guaranteed the price of cheese? 

 Has the subject been considered at all in your dis- 

 trict, or have you anything to say about it? The 

 only way in which it has been considered is that we 

 think the cheesemakers are having the better of it. 

 \\V do not think it is quite fair. That is the only 

 aspect of the case we have considered. 



6790. You have not considered it in its more 

 general aspect? No. Mr. Sadler would perhaps 

 answer further on that question later on. 



6791. Mr. Rea: Your losses on the whole of tho 

 year last year were in the last two quarters,- or at 

 least two-thirds? Yes. 



6792. In spite of the bad summer you made a profit 

 in the summer? Yes. 



6793. And in the other two periods you made a 

 loss? -Yes. 



6794. Is that a usual thing in your dairying, I 

 mean that you look to the summer to make a suffi- 

 cient profit to carry the winter losses? Not alto 

 gether. What I have tried to show in these figures 

 is this, that it has not paid the dairy farmer to feed 

 his cattle with his produce. It would have paid him 

 better to have been without the milk and to hav 

 sold his produce. That is the main point I want t'i 

 show in regard to last winter's production of milk. 



