Improvement Of Dairy Herds

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 70, 19 July 1948, Page 5

Improvement Of Dairy Herds

ANNUAL MEETING OF ASSOCIATION A motion recommending that the Bay of Plenty and East Coast Herd Improvement Association should publish its own sire selection catalogue for the coming season and not combine with the Auckland Association in the preparing of the usual joint copy, was carried at the annual general meeting of the Association held in Whakatane on Friday. The final selection for the publishing of the catalogue was placed in the hands of the management committee pending the collection of sufficient entries of good stock from the breeders to make the publication worthwhile. Speaking on the matter, Mr N. ‘Carter, the secretary-manager of the .Association, said that last year the Association had sent a list of 18 hulls and some heifers of excellent •quality to the Lands and Survey Department. However the letter from the department regarding jjrice and inspection dates came very late and then turned down the offer, stating that the requirements of the department had been filled. This consequently made it very late for the local nominations to the-.com-bined catalogue and they missed. To keep faith with the suppliers of the stock, Mr Carter continued, the Bay Association decided at the last minute to publish its own catalogue. This was small, but quite a success.

Many other delegates spoke on the subject and all were strong in their opinion that no bulls should be included unless they were proven berd improvers. This they thought would limit the number of bulls entered, but would at the same time, give it a hall mark of bull quality. Mr W. H. Mandeno put forward a suggestion to the meeting that the catalogue if printed should be earlier in the season, so as to give farmers the chance to locate the quality bulls and decide whether they would care to buy. He maintained that the catalogue was for the benefit of the Association members and not for the publicity of the breeders. A good bull he said, would sell easily but it was a different thing to find it.

An addition to this was made by Mr G. Brown, of Te Puke, who said if breeders could be persuaded to put the names of their best bulls in the catalogue, whether they intended to sell through the Association’s sale or not it would give farmers the opportunity to locate the best. Other matters discussed by the meeting were the lateness of the return of the Association testing figures for the respective months. This Mr Carter explained by saying that ihe Association was not able to get a senior clerk, who could supervise the calculating staff whose duty it was to get the returns out. He said hie had even offered up to £8 a week fo try and obtain the necessary clerk. The office layout he said was not conducive to efficient working and iintil further offices could be obtained they would have to manage.