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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 85
(Taken at Ballarat) — Friday, 18th June, 1886
(Taken at Ballarat)
Friday, 18th June, 1886.
Present :
- The Hon. J. F. Levien, M.L.A., in the Chair;
- A. Plummer, Esq., J.P.,
- Charles Yeo, Esq.,
- Baird, Esq.,
- The Hon, W. Madden, M.L.A.,
- Joseph Knight, Esq,
- T. K. Dow, Esq. D. Martin, Esq.,
David Wilson examined.
David Wilson, continued, 18th June 1886.
1809. Is the leading feature of your business farming or dairying?—Dairying.
1810. Coupled with agriculture?—Yes.
1811. Has your experience been confined to this district in the vicinity of Ballarat?—I have been sixteen years in the Ballarat dis-trict, and twenty in the Geelong district—that is my experience in the colony.
1812. You have devoted considerable attention to dairying?—This last sixteen years specially to dairying.
1813. Have you found it a profitable branch of your business?—Generally so.
1814. I think you have prepared a paper?—I am prepared to read a statement to the Commission of my views upon the subject, and the paper will speak for itself; and after I have read it, I shall be happy to answer any questions that may be put.
"As I understand the object of this Commission is to ascertain if there is any other profitable way that the people can promptly and remuneratively draw a living from the land other than gram-growing, and as I have been dairying in the page 93colony for over thirty years, I have been requested by several of the
produce merchants to call your attention to the dairying industry, with a view of showing that there is no more profitable and no speedier or surer way under certain circumstances than dairying properly conducted.David Wilson, continued, 18th June 1886.
"If the Commission will kindly allow me to give my evidence in my own way, and if there is anything that I neglect to state or have not made plain, I shall be happy to answer any questions after, as I would like to sheet home to the minds of this Commission the magnitude of the loss that we are sustaining yearly in the business. But the first difficulty that meets me to show my case is there are no statistics, and Mr. Hayter, perfect as he may be in every other branch of colonial industrial statistics, has left the dairying comparatively neglected.
"For to know how many dairy cows there have been, and are in use yearly, their produce in milk, butter, and cheese, is as essential to the knowledge of the dairy and its profits as the elaborate returns we get from public and private sources of the growth of our grain trade; and I hope the time has come when we shall have them in future, so that any statistic I may quote will be obtained principally from the press.
"The dairy industry of Victoria continues in a position which must be as unsatisfactory to the producers as to the consumers in the articles of butter and cheese. The glutted market of one season is followed by the famine of another with amazing regularity, and yet no departmental steps are taken to alter so objectionable and unprofitable a situation, The Weekly Leader, of 9th May, 1885, in reviewing the butter market, says—The difference in the quality of samples of colonial butter is really most extraordinary. Our quotations this week are 6d. to 1s. 6d. per lb. wholesale, a difference of 200 per cent, and no one who has opportunities of seeing and tasting the different qualities can wonder at it. Butter may be obtained at some of the leading shops in town which could not be excelled, for which 2s. fid. or 3s. per lb. is obtained, while in another place it is sold of most disgusting quality, to which the oleomargarine of the United States is vastly superior.'
"For the remainder of the truthful article, I would commend the perusal of it to the Commissioners. We were told six years ago by one of the Melbourne firms that they sold 1,500,000 lbs. of butter in take year. One-third was good, one-third inferior, selling at half price, the remainder only fit for making soap; and to show we are still going on with this woeful waste of the best of all human foods', again quoting from the same paper, we were told last year that the butter exported from Victoria amounted to a total value of £60,000; and when to this is added the immense quantity required to supply the colony's home consumption, some idea is conveyed as to the important position held by the dairy portion of the farm. As a matter of fact, whatever losses may be sustained from failure in the cereal crops or other causes, it is generally admitted that the produce from the cows of the farm is one of the few sure things depended on to pay current expenses and help to keep matters going throughout the year.
"From this point of view, everything pertaining to this particular branch of farming industry assumes special importance, and no phase of agricultural operations demands a larger share of special attention. And, still farther, to show the Commission the toss the country is still sustaining between good and bad butter, we were told last year that three firms sold 1,500 tons of butter averaging 10d. a pound, or a total of £140,000, while one of our leading dairymen obtained an average, in the same sale-rooms, the same year, of la, 5¼d.
"Presuming that this 1,500 tons had averaged the same, the total sold by the above three firms alone would have been £241,500. Here is shown a loss, as between well-made and badly made butter, of £101,500 to the producers by the sale of three firms in the city of Melbourne alone, in one year, so that you can judge for yourselves what this must mean over the colony.
"Then with regard to cheese, it is much about in the same position. There is a great deal of good and a very great deal of bad; and one of the peculiarities of this branch of the business is, that a dairyman or a dairy woman will make a good cheese now and again, and half-a-dozen bad ones, and they don't know why, for want of a proper system of appliances, such as Ramsay's patent cheese vats and heaters, aud although the factory system has worked a great reform in cheese-making in Victoria, still it has not succeeded as one would have expected. My own impression is, that the factory system and appliances, applied to moderate and large private dairies, where there is a family, would be much better for this country. It is our hot-wind nights that spoil the transit of milk to our factories for cheese-making.
"Then there is another phase of the subject I should like to impress upon you, that is the quantity we might and ought to produce, and, if the male portion of our page 94.gif)
farming community were to beatow a portion of the time, patience and perseverance in conserving water and growing forage for cows that they do in growing grain, our increase of dairy produce wold be at least 100 fold; and I am afraid the time is a at hand, whether they like it or not that they will have to do it, with the prospects we hare for grain and wool in the future. But I suppose the question that the Commission want to consider it what steps can be taken to impress upon the farmers the way of extensively opening up an increase of quantity and quality of this valuable product of the land? And what are the diffculties that he in the way of its accomplishment? These I will endeavour to name, and then suggest a pian to overcome them.David Wilson, continued, 18th June 1886.
"First, then, is the scarcity of milkers, dairymaids, dairymen, or boys, skilled or unskilled. Go where you will, you cannot get them when you want then more especially females; and, if you do get one, they will not stop any length of time the job, because, as a rule, they are only milkers, and know nothing of dairying as a profession.
"Hence they have no inducements, in a pecuniary sense, to stick to the billet, and so take the first chance of ben eating themselves in some other line. So Ik dairying in Victoria is pretty well confined to married farmers with grown-up families and although I am not without hope of getting a good practical milking machine, still we must do something in the meantime; and what I think would remedy this to a large extent is, if the Agricultural Council would attach dainies to all the school farms they mean to start, admitting male and female pupils for a short session, and teaching them all the latest improvements connected with the manufacture of first-class butter and cheese, according to modern labour-saving principles. But I would not expect that our milking labour would be very largely recruited from this source, because I think, as a rule, the most of the pupils attend-ing the farms for a few weeks or months, learning to work the cream separator, steam cheese rats, and other appliances adapted to this hot climate, and in pre-pared to pay a fee for it, would go back to be bosses in their own dairies.
"Therefore, I would suggest that there should be at least one dairy farm estab-lished of, say, 2,000 acres, where there would be room for cultivating winter and autumn forage, combined with the natural grasses, to carry from 200 to 300 cows keeping 100 milking all the year round; and to obtain the milkers for the dairy would have the Council to apply for all the industrial school boys and grils, above ten years of age, and, perhaps, a good draft of reformatory boys and girls, if the other was not sufficient, taking your managers from the advanced pupils in your model farms.
"There is nothing to prevent children of ten years and upwards learning to milk a few cows night and morning, and get their schooling at mid-day. It is only what is going on every day in private circles. And if the Government would give a portion to the Council of what these children already cost the State for mainten-ance, added to the profits of the dairy, and a premium obtainable from UM farmen for certificated dairymaids and youths as they go out.
"This, I think, would be a financial success to the Council, as well as the blessing of taking those children from the old haunts in the back blocks of the cities to which, sooner or later, a great many of them go, and making healthy and happy colonists, and supplying an undoubted want in the dairy labour market.
"There is also another effectual way that this Council or the Department of Agriculture, or both, can diffuse informatiou for the benefit of dairy producers that is our agricultural shows. Agricultural societies offer prizes from year to year for the best butter and cheese, and those who know how to make a good article annually take the prize without any instruction being disseminated.
"Those who are good butter-makers are good butter-makers still, and those whose product is fit only for cart-grease continue ignoran of the means of altering the result.
"Is it then to be wondered at that instruction in dairying should be neglected in a country where there is not a single dairy—(I mean supported by the state)—with modern appliances that is available for farmers' sons and daughter to get a lesson and see those simple labour-saving appliances, such as the Laval Cream Separator and Ramsay's patent cheese-making plant? As some of you are a ware, I have figured a little in this way myself in exhibiting dairy machinery at work at a few of our principal shows; and, I think, to the late Minister of thar purpose. And I Levien, is due the credit of giving the first State money for that purpose. And can assure the Council, from this experience, there can be a vast amount of good done in this way.
"We have been getting pupils every season from all parts of the the country and a good few from the other colonics, who, as a rule, take home with them fac-similes of page 95our plant and machinery to go to work at once with our system of
manufacture; and, as a specimen of their success, A young lady from Kilmore, who hod been at cheesse-making under the old system for years, but could not make them to please herself, nor would, I suppose, her customers, crime to me for a month; and the next time I met her was at the Wine-growers' Exhibition, where she had entered cheese for their gold medal against very large competition, and carried it off, leaving me only with a third certificate. This, you will see, is a fair case of 'Jack beating his master,' and I was glad to see it, because it spoke volumes for our system.David Wilson, continued, 18th June 1886.
"There is another colonial industry that is inseparably connected with dairying, that is 'salt.' And, perhaps, if I state to the Commission what steps I have taken in the matter, it might be the means of the Agricultural Department following it up to a more satisfactory conclusion, for the benefit of dairymen and the public generally.
"The following letter, which speaks for itself, I was requested by the Agricultural Department to hand to the Press with that object":—
"Sir,—I, in common with a great many dairymen in this colony, hating lost a great deal of hotter and cheese through the effects of bad salt, resolved this season to have the different brands of salt in daily use analyzed, to which the Minister of Agriculture kindly consented; the result of which I now enclose for insertion in your paper, and from it you will see that our colonial manufactured salt takes first place, and what has hitherto been the favourite brand, namely, the 'Black Horse' salt, the last. This, I have no doubt will rather surprise the dairy public, for if there is one thing more than another that the grocer has been charged with, it is filling empty "Black Horse' bags with colonial salt, and selling it as the former, and thus furnishing an excuse to many a puzzled dairyman for the quality of bis butter; while it turns out now, if true, that he has been, doing us a service. I may add that I intend to still further test the different samples of salt, by putting down one churning with the different brands, and see which will keep longest."
"Department of Agriculture, August 30th, 1882. Sir,—I have the honour to inform you that the Government Analyst has reported as follows with reference to the samples of salt forwarded with your letter of the 10th inst:—No. 2, 'Tower of London, colonial, is the best and most free from impurity; No. 1, the worst. The others, Nos. 3, 4, 5, are about equal. As No. 2 is said to be a colonial salt, and our manufacturers are not very careful, the composition may be found variable. In a large factory of butter or cheese, it is suggested that standard tests for magnesia, lime, and sulphates be provided. I have the honour to be, Sir, your most obedient servant, D. E. Martin, Acting-Secretary for Agriculture. Mr. D.Wilson, Spring-bank, Egerton. No. 1, 'Black Horse' salt, McPhillimay, Ballarat No. 2, 'Tower, of London,' colonial, Berry. No. 3, 'Corbett's Dairy salt,' Wood and Co. No. 4, 'Corbett's do.', Priestly and Co. No. 5, 'Corbetas refined salt.' McPhillimay, Ballarat."
I may mention to the Commission that I took some trouble in going down to town on purpose; I called at three different stores for samples of salt. Salt is a mercantile article. I took two samples of them to the Government chemist, and marked them as I sent them. You will see from that list that I gave all samples of colonial salts in daily use a fair trial, and this is your Government Analyst's answer.
1816. Which were the colonial sales and which the foreign?—The 'Tower of London,' No. 2, is a colonial salt. I think that that is my opening remarks upon this important subject, and, as I said at the beginning, if 1 have not made anything clear or plain I shall be too happy to answer any questions.
David Wilson, 18th June 1886.
1818. How many cows?—About a hundred cows.
1819. Do you get a better return from the cows?—I stated it the opening of that dairy that I expected to get from 10 to 12 per cent. more produce, and I am happy to say that has been fully realized, and about 15 per cent. throughout the year better prices, and in the summer time fully 50 per cent.
1820. Do you speak of butter or cheese?—Butter, In hot weather these machines give us 50 per cent. more produce, and in cool weather, 15.
1821. How do you get that increase?—By the old system the milk has to stand in hot weather nothing less than 48 hours, and it must stand sometimes three days. By that time in hot weather the milk is sour in twelve hours, and the cream does not get out. With our magni-ficent cream separator every particle is taken off in five minutes, cold or hot.
1822. And how long after leaving the cow can you churn?—You can churn at once if you like, but we prefer to keep it a little to matare it If I get a telegram from Melbourne, and I am 150 miles by rail from Melbourne—I get a telegram at night that they want a box of butter—that they want it from the morning's milk, I can have it upon the table at four o'clock.
1823. But you would not recommend to churn from fresh cream?—For immediate use it is very good sweet palatable butter, but it does not keep so well.
1824. To keep the butter, how long would you keep the cream?—It depends upon the weather. In the present cool weather I would keep it three days to mature, not sour; then we get a butter that will keep in all seasons. In hot weather I might churn in twelve hours, if it was extremely hot.
1825. When do you separate the milk?—Every morning as it cow from the cow.
1826. You do not churn at the same time that you separate?—only in extreme cases; but I say that can be done. I can give a milker the butter in his hand before he has done milking the last cow. He is about two hours over his work.
1827. Will not the cream ripen as well after separation as before separation?—There is no difference in that; it requires a certain time to get a certain amount of acidity. It is the same in chees-making requires a certain amount of time. I have not studied chemistry, and so I cannot explain the chemical process that the cream goes through; but I speak from experience. You must use your own judgment as to the thermometer, and the time the thing takes to be ready for churing.
1828. Have you any estimate of the amount you receive from each cow per annum?—The produce or the monetary results?
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David Wilson, continued, 18th June 1886.
1830, Certainly?—I do not think it is an extreme average to set down a cow at £12 a year clear profit.
1881. Are you taking into account the by product, the skimmed milk, for instance, that you would give to the pigs, or have you estimated its value as manufactured into cheese?—I set it down as clear profit in any branch. You use the milk too.
1832. Not the clear profit, but the value of the product of the cow gross, I suppose?—The whole of her product would be a great deal more for twelve months, but I allude to taking off her expenses. £12 a year is clear profit. Any fair average cow fed will give a farmer that amount per year, clear profit.
1833. Have you any views as to the kind of cows you should get?—Yea.
1834. Have you any objection to state what they are?—I found the Ayrshire cow for our climate far the best. It answered best for both butter and cheese.
1835. What grasses have you?—The natural grasses, and not first-class grass either. It is not first-class country.
1836. Do you mean the colonial grasses, or have you English grasses?—I have a few paddocks of English grasses, but the bulk is natural.
1837. How many acres does a cow require?—In our country it requires ten acres.
1838. Do you think that if the grasses were improved you could reduce it?—I would have more feed in dairying to go in for winter forage and autumn forage, either with or without irrigation or the silage in future, and I would feign have irrigation. Ten acres of irrigation to a farm would overcome all the difficulty.
1839. What is your land worth per acre here—take the ten acres per cow?—I have no idea. And as to asking my idea of the value of land, I might be a seller; it would not be a criterion. The laud adjoining mine has been sold from £3 to £7 10s.
1840. Where is it situated?—About three miles from the township of Mount Egerton.
1841. Would it let for 2s. an acre?—I would not let it for that. It would bring 4s., I should think. It is worth a greal deal more to me.
1842. Reverting to the important statement you made as to the increase of produce, you told us where the loss of produce came in under the old system, the milk going bad. Do you state that you get the whole of the cream from all of the milk in hot weather by a separator?—Yes, every particle.
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David Wilson, 18th June 1886.
1844. There is no loss at all?—No loss; it is all gain,
1845. What kind of separator do you use?—De Laval's.
1846. Are you acquainted with any other kind?—I have seen the Danish one, but it is not so well adapted, I think, for small diaria It does very well for large factories, but the Laval is so small, light, and easy, and does not get out of the level; that it is more adapted to a farm. Any woman can use it.
1847. Is the butter made by the separator better than the butter made under the old system?—We have got this year from 10 to 25 per cent. above any price we got before.
1848. Did you make butter before?—Yes, we tried every plan before we gut the separator, and if I was asked to go hack to the old system of dairying I would rather go to Pentridge.
1849. You spoke of the great difference in the samples of butter and the consequent great difference in value. Do not you think that even under this system there would still be a very great difference in the sample and value of butter?—No, I do not think so. Of course this climate is one of the most peculiar climates in the world for butter-making, for when it comes three or four hot-wind days, unless you hare a cool place to mature your cream you will not have good butter, and till that is overcome by artificial means you will always have a certain percentage of Victorian butter a drug. But one way to remedy that very easily would be a small refrigerating machine. I am in hopes we shall get it before long, a machine that would cost £30 to £50 to be worked by a little engine that you have upon the place, to cool a place say 6 feet square. It is the only want. If you could obtain that it would make dairying in Victoria altogether easier.
1850. How much space would you require to set the milk under the old system?—Three feet square would give the cream of 100 dairy con under the present system, but under the old system you would want a place 150 feet by 40 to keep the milk for three days.
1851. This cool place that you speak of is to mature the cream?—Yes; but that is another scheme. If I were in the northern parts of the colony, I should try what is called Kanas ventilating tubes, that is pipes laid about thirteen feet below the surface and carried some 300 feet to the dairy, and the end of the pipe carried up about fifteen feet into the dairy; the draught through it is always cool. They say it is a great success in America, and if that be the case I would be prepared to dairy in any portion of Victoria.
1852. Have you tried that system yourself?—On a small scale.
gerator would overcome the difficulty of the northern David Wilson, continued, 18th June 1886.
1854. In the hot areas, if they had an excavation at a reasonable depth and well ventilated, would not that meet the case to settle the cream?—Yes; but I believe the refrigerator would be the simplest and cheapest, because there should be no dairy now-a-days but what should he prepared to make butter and cheese, and they ought to do that cheaply without an engine.
1855. Do you feed your cows in winter?—Yes.
1856. And in autumn a little?—Autumn is the principal feed. We give some green maize in autumn, and though I have tried ensilage on a small scale, we have up to now fed them with steam chaff.
1857. Have you tried any of the millets for feeding?—No; nothing but sorghum saccharatum, I suppose that is the nearest approach to it, cut up.
1858. Does that answer well?—Very well indeed; but our district has very sharp frosts, and you may sow a very large quantity, but the moment you get frosts you lose the lot; with a silo, you are independent. I have tried a little that way, but I suppose it is coming, I have not been perfect in that yet.
1859. You spoke of cheese-making plant suitable for a farm, as against the plant used in the factories, and you mention Ramsay's plant; is that one suitable for individual farms?—Yes, I think so; it is the cheapest and most effectual I have seen.
1860. What is the smallest number of cows that would justify the employment of those plants?—You could use them with a dairy of ten cows.
1861. What would be the cost, of that cheese-making plant complete?—For a dairy of ten cows; I believe you could get a vacuum-heater, all ready to put the milk in and take the cheese out for about £15; everything is made to the cheese-maker's hands, she could not make a mistake; it comes out ready for the press. Of course, for a dairy of 100 cows the plant would be larger and more expensive.
1862. Can you recommend any system that would regulate the supply and the price of butter?—Of our produce in the market?
1863. Yes, the butter?—That is just the anomaly of the business.
1864. I thought when you were reading that you had some sugges-tions to make to regulate the price and supply?—By making a good article, and using the machines 1 have mentioned there, that would do it; I know of no other way.
1865. Have you seen anything in the shape of a milking machine tried?—Nothing successfully.
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David Wilson, 18th June 1886.
1867. In your experiment of ensilage, did you put any salt with it?—No.
1868. Have the cows access to lime, or is the water that they drink treated with lime?—Our country is a fresh country; there in no salt in it; but when we steam chaff we always salt it.
1869. Do you treat the water with lime at all?—No; it is too expen-aire; we cannot afford it.
1870. Do you think it would pay to export butter and cheese a England from here?—I think it would; my experience bas been both ways. Some eighteen years ago butter was a tremendous drug in the colony, and I think it was about the first year I came to Egerton; you could buy butter in the colony for 3d. a pound that year, and 23 or 25 of us resolved to try the English market with our batter at that time. I was not in charge of the dairy myself, they depended on Mrs. Wilson, who has been a dairymaid from her childhood, and we shipped a con-signment apiece, with our separate brands, to the English market. It were to copy the successful ones, but I am sorry to say the result of that consignment to England was most deplorable; the whole of the 25 dairies in my district was sold for cart-grease in London. Since then, I am happy to say, that after taking charge of the dairy myself, I make a consignment, not only of the salt, but of the fresh butter, to the Los-don market. I was so thoroughly convinced that I was in the right groove that I resolved to try it. Will the Commission allow me read the agent's letter to me from London of the result of the consignment; it will speak for itself better than I can give it. I may mention that I consigned this second consignment through McCaw, McIllwrick, and Co, of Melbourne, a very old established firm.
1871, In what year?—November, 1881 "89 Queen-street, Mel bourne, 4th June, 1882. Mr. D. Wilson, Spring Bank, Egerron. Dear Sir—We herewith enclose our London agent's report of your consign ment of fresh print butter per s.s. Protos, which sailed from here in December last; also find cheque in payment of our account sales-are sure you must feel much gratified at the result. We are & c. McCaw, McIllwrick, and Co." This is the London agent's report:-"London, 7th April, 1882. Messrs. McCaw, Mclllwrick, and Co. Gentlemen—We last had this pleasure the 10th February, since which the Protos arrived, after a very long voyage for a steamer. We found D. Wilson's, of Egerton, fresh butter in prints in excellent condition and quality, and had no trouble in selling it at 138 shillings per 100 Ibs, for which we enclose draft. This lot of butter certainly was superior to any we have seen in our twenty years' experience in the London market, and we shall he glad to receive any quantity you can send, as we are sure to find high prices for it. We had the Pleasure of showing it to Sir Henry Parkes, and he was very much pleased wish it."
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David Wilson, continued, 18th June 1886.
1873. I think what Mr. Madden means is, was it in a refrigerating chamber in that ship?—No, it was not; and the most remarkable thing is this—I have known a great deal of butter consigned to Melbourne stand sometimes ft day in the railway shed, and a day upon the wharf, and going to Sydney, it got no chance. I went therefore to Melbourne to see about it, and I found there were 38 tous of butter in the hold shipped by one man. My cask was put upon the top, and just alongside the outside walls was a freezing chamber; there was no room for it inside at that time. I tried the temperature of the hold at the far end, and it was from 78 to 80 degrees, but I do not think it was quite so hot up against the freezing chamber, That 38 tons of butter was sold in London the same day at 8d., the day mine brought 14½d,; a remarkable difference. It ruined the man, and it showed me that I could make a fortune, if the colonials refused to take my butter.
1874, The dairies in the Kerang district are mostly cheese manufactures. You spoke about the hot winds spoiling the milk in the night time?—Yes.
1875. Will you suggest any remedy?—We have a way of preserving it by a composition of my own, a purely vegetable product; glacialine is sold for the purpose, but it is not that, I am not going to tell you what it is; I will tell you what it is not. One of the difficulties in cheese making, as Mr, Yeo remarked, is in a district where there are plenty of cows and plenty of milk. A man starts in very favorable circumstances, the milk comes in the first season very well; there come three or four hot-wind nights, and the milk comes in in the morning, and perhaps out of 1,000 gallons 20 cans have to be sent back, The man must protect his interest, the producer does not like it, and she refuses to send milk at all. This comes to them all in turn, and consequently the factory does not get the supply of milk that is wanted, and the factory has to shut up. With the proper machinery, they have not the risk of the milk going sour in transit; that is the advantage of having a factory upon the farm, where the milk is not exposed to that risk.
1876. Do you think that dairying can be carried on at the Dookie Experimental Farm, or in the northern district?—I have been to the Dookie Farm, and perhaps the first department in the farm that I saw was in my own profession. It was in a most deplorable state. I do not think the manager is responsible for that at all; but the milk that I saw there, the little milk that they had, upon my word, I would expect to have found better in the stone-breaker's tent upon the road side. In fact, from a sanitary point of view, I do not think it was right to have such a thing. Evidently a dairy had been constructed there, but for want of a lining, what little milk they bad was spoilt. It was a hot wind day, and the dust was blowing in, A reporter of the Telegraph was with me, and we had a difficulty in finding whether the milk standing for cream was fat, dished up with dust upon the top, or whether it was milk.
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1877. I merely ask, is the district suitable for a dairy?—If by what I saw, I should say no.
1878. But it is not fair to condemn a district because the thing had been carried out in a had way?—Just so.
1879. I think you said, with a little irrigation, dairying can be carried on in any part of the colony?—Yes, if we get the refrigerating chamber; and, no doubt, even upon the Dookie Farm, with a little irrigation and a little food provided—either ensilape or green stuff for the autumn—dairying could be conducted in the district, and profitably; and I would have no hesitation in undertaking to make a dairy pay there, because, till we got the improvements I mention—either the ventilator or the re-frigerating pipes—I should make cheese instead of butter; and we are never stuck with cheese, because the morning's milk is in the press by three o'clock in the afternoon. Of course, I would never at attempt to make butter such a day as I was there; still it would not affect the profits of the dairy through the year.
The witness withdrew.