MINUTES OF EVIDENCE. 



59 



27 August, 1919.] 



MR. P. W. CLARKSON. 



[Continued. 



6835. Do you put your cows to the bull again, or 

 do you sell them out? As a rule, I change about 

 one-third of them.. 



0836. Do they then go to the butcher, or are they 

 sold to other dairy farmers ? They are then sold to 

 the butcher. 



6837. It is not what they call town dairying, where 

 they simply buy the new calf-cow, feed it all the 

 time, and sell it to the butcher? No, I sell only 

 about one-third of the stock. Perhaps 1 may sell a 

 few calvers in the spring. 1 do not usually keep 

 as many cows in the summer as 1 do in the winter. 



6838. Do you bring up calves and breed them, or 

 do you sell them? 1 sell the majority of them. I 

 rear perhaps six or eight per year. 



6839. The heifer calves? Yes. 



6840. And the rest you sell? Yes. 



6841. Is this milk that you give us, the milk that 

 you sell, or the milk that the cows give? It is the 

 milk I have sold. 



6842. So, in addition to this milk, you have also 

 had the milk which has been used to bring up calves? 

 My calves do not get much milk. 



6843. They must get it for three or four weeks, 

 anyway, do not they? Yes; it is an error on my 

 part that I have not included this milk in the costings. 

 1 bring them on to calves' meal in about a fort- 

 night. 



6844. I notice it works out at about 600 gallons a 

 year. Is that a good yield or a bad yield or an 

 average yield in your country? Under the circum- 

 stances 1 should consider it fair. We have not had 

 pasture enough. We have not been able to get hold 

 of the right class of cake that we should like to have 

 done sometimes; and all these things have materially 

 decreased the output of milk. 



694."). Cheshire is a good dairy country, is it not? 

 -Yes. 



6846. And would these be average fanners' cows ; 

 they are a good class of cows, are not they? Yes. 



' X I7. And these would be the average in the 

 country? .Yes. 



6848. Do yon tell us you have done as well as the 

 average dairy farmer ? It is rather a difficult ques- 

 tion to answer, because I have not had the privilege 

 of looking at other people's books; but I should con- 

 viilor I have done about the average that other 

 farmers have done. 



6849. As a matter of fact, you would have been 

 350 better off if you had not been in the dairy 

 business at all? Yes, that is so. 



6850. Were you satisfied with the prices that were 

 fixed last year? No. 



6851. They were too low? Yes. . 



J. Were thoy too low for an average year, or 

 simply because you had a bad season? They were 

 too low for a winter like last winter, when the diffi- 

 culties were so great. At the beginning of the winter 

 I advocated nothing loss than 2s. 6d. I could see it 

 was not going to pay at 2s. 3d. I think that that 

 was what our Association recommended. 



6853. What difficulties do you specially refer to? 

 Th.-re was a great difficulty in getting Indian meal 

 about Christmas. 



6854. In getting feeding-stuffs? Yes, in getting 

 feeding-stuffs. Thorp was great difficulty. 



6855. And that continued? That continued most of 

 the wint 



6856. That is one difficulty. What is the next diffi- 

 culty? I ought to mention there, that the difficulty 

 was increased owing to the fact that we could not 



the de<-ordicatfd cotton rni-al and Indian meal 

 I think, are the two finest milk producers 

 tbere are. and we hnd to fall back on compounds and 

 bean flour, which is excessively dear. Then at 

 Christmas we began to feel a little the effect of the 

 shortage of the hours and the increased wages of 

 labour. 



. Those were the two chief difficulties? Yes. 



i. How much labour do you use for your 35 

 cows? Do you mean apart from the milking? 



' V". including tho milking?- About two men 

 MHOM myself and a youth. 



WflO. Do you milk yourself? I do. 



6861. Do you find any difficulty in getting labour? 

 Yes. It has been very unsettled in our district for 

 this last couple of years. We find a great difficulty 

 in getting the skilled men. There are very few 

 cottages on our farms. 



6862. 1 am speaking of dairy labour for looking 

 after cows, and not ordinary farm labour. Has that 

 got worse during the last year or 'so? Yes. 



6863. Can you give me any reason why it has got 

 worse? A lot of the men went away to the war, and 

 they have not returned, or those who have returned, 

 have not all settled down back to the farm industry. 

 They have not in our district ; and the outsde labourers 

 that you get are, of course, inefficient milkers. There 

 is no question we have been bothered for skilled 

 labour. 



6864. Has that improved : is the labour prospect 

 improving or getting worse? 1 think generally there 

 is a slight improvement. 



6865. Is that any objection to the Sunday labour 

 necessary in milk production? I know in some 

 cases where there has been so little profit out of the 

 milk business, speaking now of the smaller dairies, 

 the farmer and his family have done all the milking 

 from Saturday noon to Monday morning instead of 

 paying overtime. 



6866. That is to save the overtime? Yes; but in 

 my case I have not found any difficulty in the men 

 coming at the week-end. 



6867. In your own case you have found no diffi- 

 culty; but I am asking you generally as you come 

 to speak for the county generally ? Yes. 



6868. Is there a complaint about the difficulty of 

 getting milkers over the week-end for Sunday labour ? 

 Yes, there iff. 



6869. Can you suggest any remedy for that? I 

 think the chief remedy in regard to skilled labour 

 in our part of Cheshire wquld be the erection of 

 cottages on the farms. There are very few farms 

 with cottages to them. 



6870. How would the building of cottages get over 

 the objection to working on the Sunday? You sec 

 the young single men we have to trust to, when they 

 get to a certain age generally get married and leave 

 farming work altogether, and go somewhere else where 

 they can get a house. 



6871. You are short of houses there? Yes. I think 

 that difficulty in regard to the skilled farming part 

 of the business would be got over by the erection of 

 cottages on the farms. 



6872. Then there is not really the objection to 

 Sunday labour in milking? No, not generally. 



6873. la there any trouble about the Saturday half- 

 holiday? It is not generally followed out. The farmers 

 prefer paying overtime till 4 o'clock on a Saturday. 

 I think they take this view of it ; that it is far better 

 to keep the men on the place till 4 o'clock than lose the 

 men at 12 on Saturday, and have them return again 

 in the evening to do the milking. 



374. Can the milking be done before 4 ? It is done. 

 ?75. And the men are content to do that? Yes. 



6876. Do you think that is a satisfactory arrange- 

 ment, and that the men will not insist on their 

 Saturday half -holiday? No. You see, that is the rule 

 they are following out. 



6877. You say there is a great desire now that men 

 should have a half-holiday? -It is a thing that I have 

 never agreed with finishing at noon on a Saturday. 



6878. I was going to ask you whether you have a'ny 

 suggestion to make to meet that difficulty; but the 

 difficulty. I understand, has not arisen in Cheshire? 

 No, with exceptional cases. 1 do know one farm 

 where they have a milking plant, where the men do 

 leave on Saturday at noon, and the master and the 

 boy attends to milking in the afternoon. 



6879. But the boy has to miss his Saturday after- 

 noon ? Yes. 



6880. Is there any plan which the Cheshire Dairy 

 Farmers have for getting over this trouble so that the 

 men may have a half-holiday on Saturday? No, I 

 do not think 1 can Miii^ost anything. 



6881. What in your view is it that the milk fanner 

 requires to put his industry into a satisfactory con- 

 dition ; is it better prices? Yes. I think the diffi- 

 culty as regards summer-time will bo overcome some- 

 what by getting a little bit more land down to grass 

 again undoubtedly. 



