FIRST CENTURY OF DAIRYING IN NEW SOUTH WALES. 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE DAIRYING INDUSTRY OF 

 NEW SOUTH WALES. 



W* have ample evidence, if such were necessary, to show that 

 since the foundation of this present Commonwealth, which dates 

 back some 121 years, Government officers have been deputed every 

 year to collect the returns from those engaged in all descriptions 

 of agricultural pursuits. What has become of those returns has oecn 

 asked over and over again without effect. 



That those statistics are of immense value to each State in the 

 Commonwealth goes without showing, yet it would appear they 

 .are not available from an official standpoint at the present moment. 

 The fact is that these statistics are rolled up and put away in the 

 archives of Darlinghurst Gaol, side by side with every record that 

 has ever been signed by a Governor or his private secretary from 

 the days of Phillip. It is to be hoped that some future compiler will 

 have an opportunity of inspecting them. 



However, be that as it may, the attached is the only records 

 available, and these do not comprise sufficient data to. compare the 

 past with the present developments in dairying. In former days 

 nearly every cow in Australia was milked during the summer 

 months with a view of making the calves docile before turning 

 them out on the runs. The butter and cheese made from the milk 

 was often sold in Wollongong, the then centre of the far-famed 

 Illawarra, as Cork (Ireland) butter, packed in Irish perkins. It is 

 said that a consignment of cheese -from the western districts of New 

 South Wales was once mistaken on the Sydney market for grind- 

 stones of a special quality. 



