DAIRY FARMING 4I 



engaged therein, but ultimately to destroy the future 

 prospects of milk sellers." The profit, as it is, has been 

 very narrow. A marked increase in the supply would 

 bring profits to the vanishing point. There is, however, 

 room for the profitable making of cheese. 



In Lincolnshire, dairy farming does not seem in 

 favour, owing to restricted markets, heavy railway rates, 

 and distance from stations. But remarkable instances 

 of success are given. Thus, on 1000 acres in the 

 Lincoln Union, two-thirds grass, the occupier lost ^701 

 9s 6d between 1889 and 1885, but starting a dairy in 

 that year had made a profit of ^^968 18s. 2d. between 

 1886 and 1893. Another farmer, near Gainsborough, 

 who has laid some land down to grass, and uses 

 machinery for cutting and crushing and pulping chaff, 

 cake, turnips, linseed and corn, cooking potatoes also 

 with the exhaust steam, and who apparently puts every- 

 thing to his cows, says he has done much better than 

 sticking to the old course. 



Another farmer finds milk, even with the heavy 

 railway charges, " pays him much better than beef" 



Mr Wilson Fox states that where good butter was 

 turned out in uniform quality, there was plenty of 

 competition for it, but there is a general want of 

 technical knowledge and of proper equipments for dairy 

 work ; while one butter factory has done well, and has 

 raised the price and increased the sale of butter, other 

 experiments carried out with skill and capital have 

 failed, and the Lincolnshire towns are full of Danish and 

 New Zealand butter. 



Mr J. Stratton thinks dairying "the best branch of 

 the business. I dairy 200 cows, and rear all the stock. 

 I keep the young stock upon the poor lands I have laid 

 down to grass, and keep the dairy cows on the better 

 land at home. It is much better to sell the milk than to 

 make cheese or butter," but he complains that the rail- 

 way company take an eighth of the value of his milk, 

 which is " very exorbitant." And he holds that although 

 milk prices have gone down some 17 per cent, and the 

 value of 700 or 800 head of cattle of his own breeding 



