A GOOD BULL.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVI, Issue 4857, 24 July 1925, Page 4

A GOOD BULL.

INVESTMENT FOR THE FARMER.

MEANS OF HIGH PROFITS. A great many farmers consider a good purebred dairy bull to be an expensixe luxury—an animal that is very nice to have on the farm, but only an inves.tna.ent for wealthy men. This is quite wrong, points out B. W. Sampson, in the Journal of the South African Department of Agriculture. A good bull can earn more money than cows bought for the same sum. The better breed the cow is the higner the profits she can yield if properly handled. If the farmer were to put a good bull to his cows and gradually replace the old stock by heifers that gave better yields than their damshis extra profits would soon more than cover the cost of the bull. But the money earned by the bull may be calculated in a more direct way than that. Suppose a farmer has thirty low-grade cows and decides to improve his herd with a pedigree bull having good milk records on both his dam’s and his sire’s sides. Let us suppose that the low-grade cows arc worth £lO a head, and that the price of the bull is £4O. It is reasonable to suppose that about twelve heifers will be reared a year. The value of these heifers at calving should be at least £3 per head higher than that of their dams, and this would mean that the bull had earned £36 on his first lot of calves.