FIRST CENTURY OF DAIRYING IN NEW SOUTH WALES. 



stalls and sheds would also have to be cleaned up daily. It is, there- 

 fore, clear that to balance the additional expense the milk must be 

 largely increased. But it is very questionable whether this system 

 could be made pay without a cheap system of irrigation. However, 

 the purchase of fodder when it is very cheap, and storing it for times 

 of drought, may yet be adopted with a considerable degree of profit 

 and success all along the coast and tablelands where the city milk 

 supply is largely drawn upon during the greater part of the year. 



During the 1853-1862 period mu:h d ; scu>-ion to >k place as t-> tlu- 

 acreage required per cow per year. Most farme -- wen.- in the habit 

 of saying that " threj acres would produce enough tood for a cow 

 throughout the year," and regulated the size of their herd accordingly. 

 Much, however, depended on the quality of the soil. This makes two 

 and a-half acres while the c >w is out in the field, a:; one haK -,^ie 

 for crop, on the average for a district of fair quality. 



It was during those years a matter of experience with those who 

 kept milking cows for city and suburban use where milk rarely sold 

 under is. per gallon, that the better the animals were fed the more 

 remunerative they became. In those instances it rpaid well to give 

 linseed and rape cake, in addition to the best food that could be ob- 

 tained on the farms. I Jut in the country, where prices of milk vary 

 irom 5d. to 7d. per gallon, the food supplies had to be regulated ac- 

 cordingly, and in anything like fair seasons it is much cheaper to 

 grow the fodder on the farm than to purchase foodstuffs in the Syd- 

 ney market. 



The position, however, of the dairy farmers of the Camden and 

 West Camden districts, and right along the seaboard as far south as 

 Twofold Bay, owing to the great fluctuations in the price of butter 

 and cheese, was by r.o means encourai>in*r during the sixties and 

 seventies. Butter often was as low as 3d. and 4<1. per lb. wholesale, 

 with no defined way out of the trouble. The milk had in consequence 

 to be raised by the cheapest possible system. The cheese farmers 

 were in practically the same position owing to the low price of 

 cheese in the Sydney market. 



In 1858, a few years after the first gold rush, most of the gold 

 diggers who had left the South Coast districts had returned and com- 

 menced dairying. Some had made sufficient money to buy farms ; 

 others, again, had made sufficient only to buy a few cows and rented 

 farms. The result was, with the addition of new arrivals, the Illa- 

 warra and Shoalhaveu Valley districts filled up rapidly with dairy 

 farmers. They were men of grit, and they, with the assistance of 

 their wives and families, soon began to raise up line herds <f cattle. 

 Among the most notable of this generation of cattle men were men 

 of different shades of opinion as regard-; the class of stock most suit- 

 ed to the dairy. There were Durham breeders. Shorthorn breeders. 

 Ayrshire breeders, and those who preferred the Ayrshire-Durham 

 cross. (Where the term " Ayrshire-Durham cross" is used it is meant 

 to infer that an Ayrshire bull was mated with a Durham cow, and 

 vice versa when a* Durham bull was use:l with an Ayrshire COW.) 

 Therefore, it may be stated with every confidence that cither of tl 

 types of dairy animals takes many years of careful mating in order 

 to produce successfully a succession of superior animals from tlu-m. 

 as \ve have seen in the past. 



It is Mist possible that the types of Ayrshire used by Messrs. Howe 



; ,,id Macleay in tlu Camden distric; in the thirties, or the Ayrshires 



.1 by Mr. Wylie, of Dunlop, lllawarra, and Messrs. Berry and 



De Mestre, about the same period in the Shoalhaven district, 



of a much superior and somewhat different type to those of the pre 



til day This we kivw from practical experience, and we lurther 

 know that the types of Ayrshire sent by Macleay to tin- 

 district, and which subsequently formed the nucleus ot Mr. 



63 



