CATTLE RAISING.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1490, 12 July 1912, Page 8

CATTLE RAISING.

MINISTER FOR AGRICULTURE'S REPORT. The annual report of the Department for Agriculture remarks that cattlebreeding is proceeding at a satisfactory pace, tnough the principal development is taking place in connection with dairy stock.. On the whole the beef cattle available , cannot be said to be improving in quality,'-owing to the fact that a higher percentage of the stores available for the fatteuer are not of as good a quality as in the past. This is due to the dairy farmer attaching, and rightly so, due importance to special-purpoio dairy breeds, i Prices for fat stock were on a fairly.high plane during the year, and fatteners did well out of tjieir onterprise. The most satisfactory feature of the year was the higher percentage of calves raised in the dairying districts, and the increasing number of these retained from cows which have, proved their inilktng capacity according.-. , ,k>. a...'systematic years testing. , ■'Thus .the■ productic-ri of our dairy stock has been placed on a very much more satisfactory basis, due to the increasing appreciation of the herd-' testing campaign instituted by the Department of Agriculture. The need of the day is the provision of more purebred bulls with a milking ancestry. Tlip.-e can be obtained from the private breeder to only a small extent, and the Government is doing all it can to strengthen and extend the purebred herds on the experimental farms, in order that more bulls'of the right type niay be available for the dairy farmers of the Dominion. While there is increasing appreciation for the necessity of the better feeding of dairy stock, especially of calves, there is yet too little attention paid to this important matter, and there is urgent need of our milk-producers being educated to realise tho importance of feeding the calf to 1 the very best advantage. Herd-testing is having t.he effect of increasing the value of dairy cows, and where good types of these, are available high prices have been recorded. The figures giving the blackleg inoculations in Taranaki during the past few seasons provide a good idea of the increased number of calves bein«- raised by our dairy farmers. Tlfroe vears ???, E th !i n " m , ber of calves treated was *j,245, the following season 62,828, and in the season just c105ed.64,414.