Assistance for Herd-Testing.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19063, 27 July 1927, Page 8

Assistance for Herd-Testing.

A Press Association message from Wellington yesterday conveyed the very important news that the Government -has decided to give £BOOO, for the current financial year, to assist the work of ,the Dominion's Herd-Testing • Associations. Many people have wondered why assistance of this kind has not already been provided by the Dairy Produce Board, which has built up a big reserve out of its levy, and seems to have ho definite policy for spending it; and if the reason, as is now. suggested, is the " limitations of " the Act," there would seem to be a strong case for an amendment. The Meat Board, for example, though its funds come from sheep, gives substantial assistance to the pork industry, which is an oil-shoot of dairying, and has almost nothing at all to do with sheep-farming; and if it is good business for sheep-farmers to give prizes and subsidies to improve the quality of pigs, it ought to be vastly better business for dairy-farmers to help themselves. In the meantime, however, it is most welcome news that the Government is going to-assist, and it is worth while considering for a moment what assistance means. The average butter-fat production of the dairy cow in New Zealand at the present time is about 1781b. But the return from a few herds (of 20 cows or more) which have been tested for some years has exceeded 4001b; many herds (not purebreds, but ordinary milking strains) have passed the 3001b limit; while scores and scores are already above 2501b. This is a striking indication, without any further evidence, of the number of " robbers " there must be to bring the Dominion I average down to 1781b. But it has been found, where testing has been begun and systematically carried out, that there are cows whose yield is as low as 1001b, less than the value of the feed they consume, and we have only to consider the difference between 1001b of butter-fat at Is 6d and the yield of those other 3001b and 4001b cows to realise what herd-test-ing means in pounds, shillings, and pence. As matters stand, authorities tell us —by which they mean with the quality of cows and feed already available —systematic herd-testing would in a few years give us an average yield of about 2501b; and as we have about 1,300,000 dairy cows altogether, or about 1,100,000 aotually in milk, raising the average from 1781b to 2501b would add 721b, or £5 Bs, to each cow, and something like £6,000,000 to our aggregate annual return. It is simply an astonishing fact that the value of herd-testing is so little appreciated in

New Zealand, especially, when we remember that an improvement in butter-fat yield is far more important in the Dominion than in countriesEngland, for example—in which dairying is carried on principally for the supply of milk, and remember, too, that there are countries, far less advanced than our own, which make the owning of a " scrub " bull an offence against the law. Nor need we be afraid that if our herds were better selected we should not have enough first-class stock for our requirements. The elimination of wastrels would not rob us of any animals with a good butter-fat pedigree, and we have fortunately enough of these now to replace the scrubbers as fast as a more careful selection created a demand for them.