water quality

Dairy farming: environmental history’s twists & turns

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A skimming station on the corner of Roberts’s Line and the Bunnythorpe-Kairanga Road, Manawatu. This photograph shows the long line of carts which was a typical sight at a skimming station in the early years of that century. Source: Palmerston North City Library.

Reading a 1977 paper reviewing farming in the Manawatu, by soil scientist J. Cowie and farming advisor W. Osborn, I was interested to read the following passage:

Dairy farming no longer predominates [in the Manawatu] as it has lost a great number of units in recent years. Twenty-six small dairy companies existed in the billycan and horse and cart days. Continue reading →