THE RURAL WORLD.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 560, 19 April 1913, Page 3

THE RURAL WORLD.

CALVES AND TUBERCULOUS COWS.

Good progress is being made with the Royal Agricultural Society's periments with calves from tuberculous cows. The object is to demonstrate the possibility of rearing calves free from the disease, in spite cf their having been born of cows that react to the tuberculin test. At the present time, reports an agricultural cor respondent to the Eastern Morning News, there are on farm at Woburn 13 yearlings and two calves born this year, ana a healthier lot no one could wish to see, in spite of the fact that their dams reacted to the teat shortly before parturition. All that has been done is to separate the calves from the cows immediately after birth, and remove them to a farm a mile away, where they have been reared under circumstances that prevent direct or indirect contact with the tuberculous catt'e. All the milk used for feeding has been raised to a temperature known to be certainly fatal to tubercle bacilli, and both indoors and at grass the calves are isolated from other stock.

I The sterilised milk proved the only ; trouble, for it brought on a bad attack of white scour. However, the animals look none the worse now, and they have twice come successfully through the ordeal of the tuberculin test. When they reach killing age they will be slaughtered and careful post-mortem examination made to prove that they are free from the disease. It is possible that two of the heifers may be kept for breeding to carry the experiments still further. Few who knew what had been done before, both at Home, and abroad, doubted the result of this experiment; but the society is doing very good service by demonstrating to farmers how comparatively simple a matter it is to rid their herds of tuberculosis. It seems as if one might in time clear the country of the scourge, arid that without resort to drastic slaughtering methods.

BRITISH DAIRY PRODUCTION.

! A report in the British Board of Agriculture Journal for September gives an interesting summary of the dairy output of Great Britain. The total quantity of milk yielded is put a 1,208,000,000 gallons. This works out apparently at an annual yield of 550 gallons per cow, while if heifers are included in the enumeration, the average is 437 gallons. It may be pointed out here that this is evidently arise in the average, becauae a one time the yield—at any rate taking the whole of the British Isles—was put at only 450 gallons must be looked on as a distinct improvement. A quarter of the total number of cows are met with in the counties of Cumberland, Westmorland, Lancashire, Cheshire, Derbyshire, and Staffordshire, and this 25 per cent, of the cows yield 82 per cent, of the total quantity. In other words, the best milk cows are found in these counties. It appears that 70 per cent, of the total yield is sold as milk, but a proportion of this is reckoned to be sold to factories or creameries, or other places where milk is manufactured up in various ways; 12 per cent, of the total yield is male into butter, and a more - astonishing thing is that only 5 per cent, is made into cheese. This last item is presumably correct, but certainly is very surprising to find that, although there are so many celebrated cheese-making districts in Great Britain —north and south—only 5 per cent, of the total amount of milk produced is made into cheese. Some 800,00,0000 gallons is consumed as milk—that is to say, either drunk raw or used in home cooking. A further 10 per cent, of the total produced is used by farmers at home, partly for their own households, and partlv to supply their labourers, and possibly in some other ways. Thi3 is rather a large item, r and probably includes also the milk that is use! for feeding calves. There has indeed been a considerable rise in the amount of dairy produce as a whole, and the above figures are very interestng tu everyone in the dairy business. Thus profitable dairyfarming depends on something more than good cattle, the cost of the crops produced for their consumption being a leading factor in the case. .We are told in the report on production, issued by the Board of Agriculture, that the average yield of British cows (as previously stated) is 500 gallons of milk per annum. It is evident that there must he a large proportion that give less thai' 500 gallons. If we take a herd of 50 cows, and assume that they average 500 gallons, it is probable that one-half the cows fail to pay their way, Bearing this fact in mind, a remark of Prof. Fraser, of the. Experimental Station of Illinois, may be quoted that in a test made of a large number of cows in tha State, he found that 25 of the best cows actually returned more profit than the 1020 poorest cows.

THE PIG BUSINESS

With the high values ruling for pigs there is an excellent opportunity presented for the man prepared to manage this profitable by-product to advantage. Like all other industries, however, success will only follow in the train of systematic and careful work. The piggery must not be the most undesirable and most neglected spot on the farm, and the pigs allowed to breed and fossick for themselves, to herd together in a filthy sty, and to devour any offal or vegetable refuse that may be ready for the scavenger's barrow. It must be in well-kept quarters and the -iow with its litter carefully housed and fed, and the young pigs properly dealt with, and their ration prepared and given with regularity, and timeliness. The feeding has very much to dn with the quality of the pork, and it is generally believed that much of the inferiority of the bacon produced in some instances arises from the want of proper feeding. Probably no animal, with all its

bad reputatio.i for nncleanliness and greediness, is more amenaDle to clean and wholesome treatment than the pig and, under it, pays better for the labour bestowed. And no other kind of stock is more prolific. Th? t>ow can produce two litters annually, often numbering eight or nine each time.

Few feeding materials are more suitable or more economical to pnduce than peas. The peas themselves are ideal flesh forcing material, and the roughage is excellent for bedding. Of course, skim milk and whey will constitute the bulk of the ration on our dairy farms, and this is quite good enough for the purpose, always allow ing, of course, something is added to take the place of the extracted but ter fat. A Victorian dairy farmer has obtained excellent results from butter milk fortified with pollard. He does not use all the butter milk, however, syphoning off the greater part of the liquid and UHing the residual matter, which, when mixed with meal makes an admirable food, as cheap as it is effective.