(4) The Farmer's inexperience and ignorance of Scientific Dairying.—To this last point the Scottish Commissioners furnish a reply in their report.
A typical Australian Dairy Farm.
"A great many," the report states, "of those engaged in producing milk have had no training in the business. If a man can milk a cow, or is willing to learn, he thinks himself quite able to run a dairy farm. In time, if he is intelligent and observant, he becomes as expert at his trade as if he had never done anything else; but his experience has certainly cost him a good deal. The men who are neither intelligent nor observant learn little from experience, and their dairy methods leave much to be desired. It is they who breed their cows anyhow, who keep no kind of milk records, who think it economy to bring in their cows to the calving as hard as wood, who depend entirely on pasture for food, who make no provision for drought, who have nothing to learn from anybody, and who are keeping the reputation of the Australian cow at a level much below respectability. By-and-by, no doubt, this type of man will become scarcer. The State Governments are doing what is possible to spread abroad scientific knowledge in dairying matters, and a younger generation is growing up that has been made familiar both with the practice and the theory of milk production. When their time comes it is certain they will make dairying highly profitable. The fact that, with an average milk yield of 'something under 250 gallons per annum,' the industry as a whole is in a prosperous condition affords the most remarkable testimony possible to the excellence of Australia as a dairyman's country. What will happen when the average doubles itself, and attains, as it surely will, the moderate figure of 500 gallons per annum?"
A Phenomenal Growth.
Starting out with splendid natural advantages—a wide range of soils of great fertility, indigenous grasses of high food value, and a congenial climate—the dairying industry in Australia has made phenomenal strides.
The establishment throughout the chief districts of co-operative factories, owned and managed by the farmers themselves, and the introduction of cold storage greatly stimulated its growth. During the last decade its advancement has been remarkable. The Australian dairy industry is based on the world's markets. Every year the demand in various countries for Australian and other dairy and farmyard products increases, and the large home market is also expanding.
The facilities for supervision, handling, and transportation are improving, and Australian dairymen to-day obtain high prices in both local and outside markets for their produce. It is stated that in South Australia dairymen who delivered good cream were able to secure from the factories an average of $0.22 per lb. from the butter made therefrom.
The following table shows at once the advance of the dairying industry (including poultry farming and bee culture):—