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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 3, Issue 6 (October 1, 1928)

Business Efficiency

page 23

Business Efficiency.

My first and last impression of New Zealand dairying, however, concerns the efficiency with which the business is operated. On land costing up to £60 an acre, butter is produced at perhaps two-thirds the cost of that in Wisconsin and Minnesota. To my mind, this proves two things: the high value of short, vigorously growing grass for milk production, and the skill of the New Zealand milk producers. They are high-grade fellows, I can testify to that, with attractive homes supplied with radios, telephones, and electric light. They know the virtues of co-operation, 75 per cent. of the dairy business of the Dominion being co-operatively orgainsed. Production has doubled in the past decade. New Zealand is rapidly overtaking Denmark on the London markets.

If you ask the New Zealand farmer about the productive capacity of his cows his answer is never in pounds of milk, but always in pounds of butterfat. That's what he sells. The rest goes to the pigs or is thrown away. In 1910 the average New Zealand cow yielded 140lb of butterfat. To-day her average is 180lb, and there are at least 500 herds which average 300lb. Herd testing, I was told, is the cause of this increase.

(Photo, W. W. Stewart.) The above model (after the North Eastern Railway Pacific type), was constructed on a scale of 7/8in. to 1ft., by Mr. C. T. Jonas, of Auckland. The model is 4ft. 6in. long and 10 1/2in. high. It is fitted with Walschaert's valve gear and has a boiler pressure of 120lbs to the square inch—the boiler being fed by a pump operated from the front driving axle. The driver of the model is Master Jonas, who is justifiably proud of his charge and handles it with skill.

(Photo, W. W. Stewart.)
The above model (after the North Eastern Railway Pacific type), was constructed on a scale of 7/8in. to 1ft., by Mr. C. T. Jonas, of Auckland. The model is 4ft. 6in. long and 10 1/2in. high. It is fitted with Walschaert's valve gear and has a boiler pressure of 120lbs to the square inch—the boiler being fed by a pump operated from the front driving axle. The driver of the model is Master Jonas, who is justifiably proud of his charge and handles it with skill.