THE RURAL WORLD.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 438, 10 February 1912, Page 7

THE RURAL WORLD.

GENERAL-PURPOSE CATTLE,

JNEW ADVOCATE OF AN OLD FETISH.

Some of the old beliefs in the field of live stock management die hard, and apparently the hardest to kill is that which lays down that the profitable breed for the dairy farmer to keep is of a dual-purpose type. Not only are farmers of the old school who have never enjoyed the experience of breeding from milk-record stock found adhering to the exploded theory but even such a prominent figure in the rural affairs of this country as Mr Alexander, principal of Lincoln Agricultural College, has appeared in print as the author of an article advocating the general-purpose cow. Mr Alexander is apparently quite convinced that his view is the only correct one. He, in fact, lectures the New Zealand farmer on his mistaken policy of breeding special-purpose stock. Certainly it is easy to understand that in England, where a good beef carcase is worth big money, it will pay dairy farmers catering to the city supply trade, and who buy in their cows when they areon the point of profit and sell them to the butcher immediately their milk supply fails, to use general-purpose animals, as it may in a few cases in this country where the farmer is working second-class land unsuited for the maintenance of heavy milk-producing cows, and who will make as much money in rearing young stock as in producing milk. Jt is doubtful, however, if the use of the dual-purpose animal under these latter circumstances will be the more profitable in the future. The cost of production is increasing at such a rate, consequent on the higher price of land, advanced rate of living, etc., that the dairy farmer working land in specially favoured locations will ultimately find it impossible to bring his own young stock to maturity. Then it will pay the men on secondclass land to cater to the special-pur-pose farmers who can only afford to feed cows which wlil give a high net return. To talk of a combined dairy and beef beast to the up-to-date dairy farmer of the present day, who is awaking to the enormous possibilties of herd testin;; and the use of a milk record bull, is asking him to put a brake on all progress, to turn back from a condition of things where doubt will give place to certainty, to the old ode where luck has oiten as much to do with success as a man's judgment. This is an age of specialism, and in no industry is the principle of greater value than in milk production. The fact to remember is that all the returns above a certain point are profit, and that if one type of animal will give 50 per cent, more produce than another on the same feed then obviously the increase in profit is enormous, and may easily constitute all the difference between profit and loss. No final improved value of a carcase when the animal's milking season is ended or even the higher value of a steer of general-purpose breed over one of a special-purpose tpye, will make up for the great difference in returns from a specialpurpose herd and one of tho generalpurpose tpye. True, here are heads of the former which may not equal herds of the latter, but they are the exception rather than the rule, and even more exceptional is it to find a general-purpose herd equal a high-type collection of cows of any of the wellknown dairy breeds. The advocates of general-purpose cattle have invariably in their minds the Shorthorn, but where is the Shorthorn, bull, even of j the supposed dairy strains, to be ofc* tainable which can be depended upon tq get milkers? lie may bo secured in England, but it is doubtful if even there he is to be obtained with certainty in the pedigrea world. No one would deny that the Shorthorn if dairy form is a great cow, but she is generally so in spite of her breeding and treatment. Ic her type is to be perpetuated and the milking character fixed in Shorthorns in general the method of breeding and handling them will have to change, and instead of breeders having their oyo on beef in the first place they will have to discard consideration of this character altogether and concentrate their energies on the dairying qualities. The outstanding fact in this contention is that dairying will never occupy the place it should in the rural economy of this country unless the general standard of our dairy herds 13 raised, and this will never be effected through the general-purpose beast.