ARE YOU A DAIRY FARMER ?

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVII, 23 November 1927, Page 9

ARE YOU A DAIRY FARMER ?

OR MERELY A COW KEEPER?

SCIENCE, SIDE-LINES, AND SUCCESS

By

“Sundowner"

(Written for the Tribune. All Rights Reserved.)

While fairly deeply immersed in our own troubles of how to materially increase our primary production in New Zealand, it may be found a very profitable use of time to study those methods which are being practised in competing countries to secure the same ends. THE HANDICAP OF TRADITION. The business of farming, which is the oldest industry in the world, is naturally the most influenced by i and custom, and tnough * ' no doubt many will claim that precedent and custom are soundly based on successful experience, and can therefore be practically blindly followed, it is the writer’s belief that they are truly the greatest Handicaps we have to rapid progress. No dairy farmer of our Dominion is surely so bigoted that he will refuse to admit that a cow produemg 4001 b of butter-fat per annum, even at twice the purchase price, is worth more than double the 200-pound cow. They know it is a fact that she is i worth three times as much. They know also how she can be secured by r te»ting and breeding, but mote than fifty per cent, of our dairy 1 farmers still persist in following the old custom of picking a cow on her looks, and thereafter appear to avoid 1 the test bucket, in case their judgment may be proved to be have been faulty. This mental attitude, though still prevalent in this new country, is vet not so marked as in older countries such as the United Kingdom, but •ven there, in a desperate attempt at survival, the tradition-bound farT mers are awaking to the necessity of new methods being employed, and once the initial break from “fader's way” is taken, are likely to adopt more advanced practices than even we in this enterprising Dominion are prepared to accept. BRITISH FARMER’S PLIGHT. In England, milk production was said to be the farmer's last bulwark against bankruptcy, and now even that bulwark a ppeirs to have been swept away-on the tide of falling pices. , The price now paid for liquid milk has fallen below the of production on almost all of the farms in the Kingdom. At the same time wages and other prouuotion costs are steadily rising. In face of these odds the determination to survive, so strong in the average Briton, has forced many farmers <m» of the old rut. and they are adopting methods which might with advantage be more closely follower oy •ur New Zealand dairy farmers. NEW DAIRYING METHODS. The chief advocate of the new system of dairying in England is one Mr Boutflour, whq. with energy and faith in what he preaches, and. above all. a wholly new and original viewpoint from which he approaches and applies well-known scientific facts, is beginning to arouse revolution in the milk industry. Very briefly, his system enables the average dairy farmer to double his output of milk. First of all. the farmer must follow the practice advocated here; he must record the yield of his cows; he must weed out the poor milkers —for no farmer can really know how much a cow milks during her lactation period without recording. He must “steam up” his animals for six weeks before they calve; and he must, in winter, feed about fourpennyworth of cake or meal for every gallon of milk, and in summer the same for every gallon over three of each cow’s yield. And, most important, in conjunction with this balanced rationing. he must milk three times a «My. MAXIMUM PROFITABLE”* RATION. The oow is the fortunate possessor of four stomachs, aiid the foundation of Mr Boutflour’s system is that the second or business stomach cannot deal with more than 3311 b of dry matter in the twenty-four hours. It is on that fact that his sysein of compounding an economic ration is based. A farmer who has for some years practised this system of rationing and milking, asserts that at the lowest figure it results in an increase of an average of 300 gallons per cow in the herd RESULTS ON SMALL FARMS. Applying these figures to a herd «, say 30 oow«. the increase will be 9000 gallons, equivalent, at English prices of milk, to £450 per annum. After deducting one-third of this for concentrated food and extra lalwir involved in three times a day milking, the small fanner is left with a credit of £3OO for the vear above the margin of ordinary farming nractice. Mr Boutflour has demonstrated to the farmer that as production increases cost of production decreases. PROFITABLE DISPOSAL OF SURPLUS. 'pie Boutflour system depends only primarily on increased milk production for its added profits. He realises that if all British dairy farmer* produce more milk a further glut of the market would be the result, with lowered still more. He therefore illustrates the profitable uses to which this milk can be put on the small farm.

To take a concrete example of what actually occurred on a small farm where the Boutflour system was employed. The first effects were these: Under the system of threetimes milking an additional hand was employed for every 30 cows. Secondly, every hand engaged got an additional two shillings per week, although the hours were no longer.. The feeding-cake used greatly enriched the land. The average yield of the herd rose from just under GOO gallons to over 900 gallons. Calfrearing was undertaken with the surplus milk, this proving distinctly profitable. The cream separated from the skim fed to calves was converted to home-made dairy butter. A further surplus of separated milk, mixed in the proportion of one_gallon milk to 3|lb of a mixture of "0 per cent, barley meal and 30 per cent, pollard was found to promote the most rapid growth and profit in pigs kept at the rate of one per cow. As with testing and selection the production further increased, incubators, brooder houses, large modern laying houses, fattening houses, etc., for poultry were erected, and it was found that the abundance of skim milk together with grain grown on the farm, fed ■to these made them the most profitable branch of the farm. HOW IT PAID. The farm fully stocked up with selected and tested pit’s, calves, and poultry, returned four times what it would do with calves alone, where all the milk was sold fluid, while at least double the number of men received profitable employment. TO INCREASE CONSUMPTION. It must, of course, be remembered that quantity and cost of production are the figures that must be kept in mind on the dairy farm, not so much the high selling value of the I product so long as there is a payable margin. Henry Ford Revolutionised industry when he set out to find, not at how large a profit, but at what absolute minimum of profit he could sell a not altogether essential article, and bv bo means the\ loveliest thing that runs on wheels.' Ihe reflex of profit was overwhelming; within a few years he found himself employing millions of men. while the subsidiary businesses that grew around the manufacture of the Ford car were countless and all profitable. So it is with farming We must learn to produce in abundance products that the world want ever more largely because of their reasonable cost. If the farmer, taking advantage of modem methods, would direct his energies, not to how dearly but to how cheaply, he could sell his produce. something of a similar miracle to Henry Ford’s would be wrought in this country.