Large quantities of butter are exported to Broken Hill and West Australia throughout the year, while during the spring months shipments are made to Great Britain.
Butter is exported in increasing quantities to Great Britain each year. In normal years from 1400 to 1600 tons are shipped.
Cheese is not made on such an extensive scale proportionately to butter; indeed, in some seasons sufficient for local consumption is not produced. Practically all the cheese is manufactured on the Cheddar system, and an article of very high quality is produced in the best factories.
Special facilities are afforded by the railways for the conveyance of perishable goods, and cream is forwarded by the dairyman to the city factories from districts 300 miles distant. Payment is usually made on the butter-fat percentages; and in order to afford suppliers an opportunity of checking the returns received from private factories the Government established a butter factory in connection with the export freezing works at Port Adelaide. At this factory every can of cream is sampled, and the quantity of butter it will produce is ascertained by the usual methods, and the supplier is paid accordingly.
A considerable number of butter factories have been erected in South Australia, and the butter produced is generally of high quality. The butter made from the milk of cows grazing on the natural herbage of the country is of splendid quality and colour. Hand separators are in general use, the cream being sent to the factories for treatment. The percentage of butter-fat in the milk of cows grazing on the natural pastures is unusually high.
Practically the whole of the midland, central, and south-east districts, excepting that portion east of the Murray, are suitable for dairying practice when carried out on systematic lines. The prices for such land for dairying would range from $24.00 to $240.00 per acre according to location, soil, and rainfall. No special terms are offered by the Government for the occupation of dairy lands. Most of the repurchased estates are in districts suitable for dairying, and these are allotted under covenant to purchase. The purchase money is paid off in seventy half-yearly instalments (the first ten bearing interest only at the rate of 4 per cent. on purchase money). Purchase money may be completed at any time after nine years. Reliable particulars of successful dairying are difficult to obtain. It is safe to say that there are many hundreds of dairymen making comfortable livings throughout the State.
Fodder Crops—Lucerne, Mangels, Rape.
Capital may be safely expended for dairy practice, especially by careful and intelligent men who have families, and they may depend upon making a good living, especially when they combine dairy practice with pig-raising. There are many instances where gross returns are obtained of from $38.40 to $72.00 per cow per annum, and this in districts where the milk is sold to the local co-operative or private factories, but where they are situated within forty miles of Adelaide, and are able to take advantage of a good train service, they can deliver their milk to the capital and obtain gross returns equal to about $76.80 to $96.00 per cow per annum.