BETTER COWS

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 59, 7 September 1926, Page 23

BETTER COWS

AND MORE FERTILISED SOIL

What new channel can production take in order to neutralise the fall in prices? Sheep-products still bring into New Zealand many more millions sterling annually than cow-products br.ing. One might therefore be inclined to look for an extension of sheep-productg rather than, of the dairy. But present indications are the other way. Any great increase in production must be made either (a) through the farmstock or (b) through the farms. It happens that the dairy farmer is offered the prospect of a tremendous increase through improving the quality of his herds. The average annual production of butter-fat per cow is probably below 200 Ib, and it could be raised to 300lb. Many dairy farmers in herd-testing associations have gone higher than 3001b per cow, but all could aim to be not below it. It is stressed that a good cow eats no more than a poor cow, so here is a prospect of adding 50 per cent, to the output of dairy farms through the farm* stock, and apart from what might be done to improve the growing power of the land itself. This possibility of increasing butter-fat production by co heavy a. percentage is the biggest thing on the . farmers' horizon. Systematic herd-testing, though yet in its infancy, has illustrated both tho evil of low butterfat production and the cure of it, which is culling and better breeding. Better breeding, of course, offers a way to increase the yield of all farm animals, but it has not been conclusively demonstrated that the sheep-breeder—vast as is his yet unconquered territory—can look forward

to the comparatively early realisation of such a hugely increased return as the herd-testing experience promises to the dairy farmer who fits himself for his mission. Therefore it is safe to say that, according to demonstrated results, the main opportunity for a big proportionate increase of production, attainable within no very long period, is on the dairyfarming rather than on the sheep-farming side.

BUTTERFAt AVERAGES.

The actual average butter-fat produc- j tion of all the dairy cows, in New Zealand is hard to say, but even among tested cows the New Zealand Co-operative Herdtesting Association found the average in 1523-24 to be 2071b; in 1925-26 it had been raised to 2321b. For that season, the highest herd tested by the association averaged 4061b of butter-fat. According to the association's manager, within a few years this herd should reach a 5001b average, provided that it escapes disease. He anticipated that ten or twelve herds under the association will next season exceed the 400lb average. In view of these figures, is it too much to hope for a Dominion-wide avferage of 300lb, increasing by 50 per cent, the quantity of New Zealand's butter and cheese export, so as to neutralise a pricefall that seems to arise inevitably from the new levels of world values and from the decreased purchasing power of the

strike-afflicted British masses? If the British miner wants cheaper cheese, the New Zealand farmer will try to send him more cheese at a lower price, but, to do this, the day worked on the farm will not be seven hours, nor yet eight hours! The herd-testing figures of the Manawatu district read still better than those given above. A Manawatu group of 1323 cows averaged 283.811b of butter-fat. So much for the improving of dairy herds. The improving of farm lands by fertiliser and cultivation is the next great avenue, and affects all classes of primary production. Rapid as is the reward offered to the breeder of better cows, and substantial as is the gain ahead of the sheep-breeder, no conquest won by breeding can be retained by any farmer who does not make good to the soil what is taken out of it. The day of taking the richness from the land, and putting nothing back, is over. A Government Instructor in Agriculture recently told an audience of farmers: "Every farmer should be his own soil chemist and know whether the fertility of his soil was right by the look of the pasture. Good grasses vanished for the want of sustenance, and one primary cause of the lowered fertility was the dairy cow. For every 6000lb of butterfat she gave she relieved the farm of an equivalent in manures, representing, say, 2cwt of superphosphate. And the sheep farmer was in the same boat, for every full-grown carcass represented 2jcwt of phosphates. One could soon see how much altogether a farm would be relieved of over a number of years."

MAGIC MANURING.

In the course of an* advocacy of phosphatic manures—partly compounded of phosphate rock imported from the Mandated Island of Nauru—the instructor demonstrated their value by instances like the following:—"ln 1923-24 a man in the Manawatu with twenty-five cows took off his property 42701b of butter-fat. In 1924 he top-dressed 33J acres with 3cwt of manure to the acre, being 5 tons at a cost of £9 10s per ton. In the 1924-25 season this man, from 27 cows, took off 6724 lb of butter-fat, which gave him an extra profit, after deducting the cost of the manure, of £113 9s 6d." It happens that the new age of manuring—the tardy rendering back to the soil of richness that has been mined out of it for years—is contemporaneous with a period of curtailed rural credit, of falling prices, and of costs that perhaps do not fall (or do not appear to fall) so quickly; but competitive conditions compel the New Zealand farmer to better methods.

Recent calculations indicate that while New Zealend uses 12|cwt of manure to the 100 acres, Denmark uses 5 tons. A movement to cheapen the- cost of fertiliser on the farm has been deemed so important by the Prime Minister, the Right. Hon. J. G. Coates, that he has personally identified himself with it. In order to keep faith with her chief creditor-customer, New Zealand must produce on such lines that she can meet the whole world on a competitive basis, and 1 adjust herself to new price-levels. To do this, she needs a large measure of rural credit, for which she looks primarily to

the Mother Country. The various fac- , tors of pride of race, desire for'a good investment within the family, need of cheap food and raw materials for the huge British industrial | populace—in fact, all considerations of honour and of interest combine to attract British capital to New Zealand productive enterprise. "Lend us the capital," says New Zaaland, "and we will invest it in your manufactures (if the cost thereof is not above a reasonable preferential margin), and out of our added production we will send back raw materials to your manufacturers and food to their workmen."