THE RURAL WORLD.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 442, 24 February 1912, Page 6

THE RURAL WORLD.

CORRECT FEEDING OF CALVES

A moat successful breeder and feeder in the north of Scotland, in explaining his system of management, said that he bought a few calves every year, so that his cows beyond supplying his household with milk and rearing their own calves, were expected to rear one bought calf for every third cow he owned. He said he often paid as much as £4 for a calf at a week old, adding he would rather give such a price for a calf got by a good bull than take one as a gift by an inferior sire.

There is, unfortunately, in many districts (writes Mr Robert Bruce m the Live Stock Journal Almanac for 1912) a great lack of attention on the part of owners to the proper rearing of calves, with the consequence that their young stock grow up stunted in growth, thriftless food consumers, when attention to the comfort of the youngsters and a less careless system of management would mean the possession of a very different, and better class of young stock. There has been of late years evidence of a growing opinion amongst a section of bresders e>f pedigree cattle of our most important breds that an amnimal, to be a good milch cow, must be of a peculiar shape, altogether different from that of the timehonured standard of excellence. The wonderful exhibition of purebred Shorthorn cows in the dairy classes at the Royal Show meeting at Norwich will do much to check extreme ideas, and must have had a very reassuring effect on the minds of those who had no wish to see the old-established breed become other than a general purpose one. If the extreme section of Shorthorn breeders had their way, Shorthorn males would become worthless as sires of grazing stock, and in short would be no longer Shorthorns —a breed which has improved the cattle in almost every country in the world.

BREVITIES. In 1908 Argentina supplied Great Britain with £13,112,215 worth of wheat, or about 34.2 per cent, of the total importation. Keep some kind cf medicine in the stable. Turpentine is good to have, as this will often afford relief in ailments among live stock. Lord Strathcona estimates the in crease of value in the field crops of Canada, as compared with last year's figures, at £20,000,000. One of the properties claimed for the mule-footed pig is its immunity from swine fever. The breed is fairly common in England. It is the gravest mistake to use infected potatoes for seed. Only the most perfect and smoothest ones should be used for planting. If the colt sweats too freely after work it may be advisable to have it clipped; it will be necessary to keep it rugged up afterwards. Fillies, as a rule are more sensitive than colts or geldings; they are more easily affected by harshness and rough usage and language. Try coaxing with the colt. If he will not go into the stable at first, be patient; there is no sense in bullocking him in with a swingle bar.

ROOT FEEDING. A dairy farmer put the turnip feeding question very well the other day. He said there was really only one way to prevent the turnip flavour in milk, and that was not to feed turnips. Sufficient care is not exercised in feeding roots to milking stock. As a farmer remarked the other day two paddocks should really be kept for the use of the cows, one in which to graze them during the day and another in which to keep them at night. In the daytime while the cows are grazing the roots should be distributed over the night paddock in such quantities as are considered desirable, and the cows should then be turned into it again after milking in the evening.