STATE HERDS.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1125, 12 May 1911, Page 8

STATE HERDS.

THE 'GOVERNMENT'S AYRSHIRES. A- while ago something was heard of the purchase of Ayrshire cattle for the Mouraaliaki State Farm. The current number of the Agricultural "Journal" gives the following particulars:— "The Moumakaki Experiment Farm has just received the ten pedigree Ayrshire cows, the remainder of the. Sunnyside herd,(Christcuurch), the mcmbers'-'df" which were bred and selected by Dr. Lcvinge, late superintendent of the Sunnyside Mental Hospital.; These cows are of a fine utility standard, and were declared by the Scottish Agricultural Commissioner, Sir. James Dunlop, to bo the best types of the utility Ayrshire he had seen in this country. They should !)■ able to prove their productive ■ capacity at the Toranaki station, where, probably, the Ayrshire stock of the Department—there is a good nucleus of a herd nt Ruakura Experiment Farm—will ho centralised, following, on the specialisation of dairy herds at the other farms. At Wereroa, a fine Holstein herd is being established, and Jerseys ore being made a feature of the Ruakura farm. The inducement for this policy is 'that the soil and environment at the several farms lend themselves to the best development of the breeds in question under suitable conditions. 'As well as ithese herds, the Shorthorn is being maintained both at Wereroa and at Ruakura. As the herds of the other breeds increase the Shorthorns will be reduced to smaller numbers,' the objective to be aimed at all the time being the development of this popular breed,, along with milk ; producing lines."