Milking cows in New Zealand at 31 January 1964 numbered 2,010,868, and of these 1,563,951, or 78 per cent of them, were to be found in the North and South Auckland, and Taranaki Land Districts. The Wellington Land District carried 205,704, or a further 10 per cent. Such a preponderance of dairying in the North Island, and more particularly in its northern and western areas, is not due to chance but to an awareness by dairy farmers that these districts possess certain natural attributes that favour it as a system of farming. In these areas a method of dairy farming has been evolved which is successful and competes favourably with other agricultural enterprises for the use of land.