42 AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION 



has greatly depreciated, there is a substantial profit in 

 the dairy industry. 



In parts of Somersetshire and Dorsetshire, it is 

 found a workable and profitable system for the farmer to 

 let his cows and buildings to dairymen, the dairyman, in 

 addition to all the dairy produce, taking the calves, and 

 the pigs fed on the buttermilk and other waste. The 

 farmer has to find sufficient pasture, or to buy artificial 

 food, and the payments range from ;^lo to ;^I2 a cow ; 

 while milk, butter and cheese had fallen in price con- 

 siderably, pigs and calves have not materially fallen. 

 The hire of the cows has fallen about ^^3 a head. 



In Lancashire, Mr Wilson Fox reports that there 

 has been a great increase in dairying, especially in milk, 

 and adds : " no doubt those who are exclusively engaged 

 in the sale of milk have felt the depression far the 

 least." 



But their success depends largely on an adequate 

 reduction of rent. Mr Barlow is of opinion that many 

 dairy farmers in the Blackburn neighbourhood have had 

 to leave their farms because of the refusal to reduce 

 rents in proportion to the fall of prices. 



If there is scepticism as to the future of the milk 

 trade, there is also great diversity of opinion as to the 

 future of English butter. Mr Sheldon and other 

 witnesses consider that the general butter trade is 

 practically lost to the British farmer, while many 

 witnesses look hopefully both to the perfecting of 

 processes by technical education, and to the develop- 

 ment of the factory system, which has been worked 

 successfully by Lord Vernon and others in England, and 

 has had, according to Mr Anderson, Secretary to the 

 Irish Agricultural Organisation Society, still greater 

 success in Ireland. There can be no doubt that there 

 is to the ordinary farmer a slight gain in price of milk, 

 owing to the higher price obtained by the butter being 

 turned out in large quantities of uniform quality and 

 appearance. 



Mr Lovell, who has great experience in the wholesale 

 butter trade, has no doubt that a large portion of the 



