FARMING NEWS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 163, 10 June 1940, Page 12

FARMING NEWS.

RURAL RAKINGS. High Butterfat Yield. An increase of 68 per cent, of milk and 70 per cent, of butterfat is shown in the, yield of cows tested by the Auckland Herd Improvement Association for April, 1940, compared ' with the returns for the corresponding month last year. The increase provides "evidence of the remarkably favourable autumn experienced this year. There were 72,430 cows tested in April, 1940, the yield representing an average of 4331 b milk and 24.21 b butterfat. Southland Lamb Killings. With the season not' yet finished the total number of killings of sheep and lambs at the three freezing works in South-, land—Makarowa, Ocean Beach, and Ma-taut-a is already substantially in advance of the figure for the previous best year, and (says the Southland Times) the indication given several months ago that this was to be a record season lias been amply borne out. The killing of sheep and lambs in Southland this season total 1,485.000 carcasses, compared with 1,391,000 for last year. This shows an increase of 94.000 carcasses; and no doubt this figure will be considerably increased by the end of • the season. . The Labour Shortage. - At a meeting of the Poverty Bay executive of the Farmers’ Union it was stated that, because of the shortage of labour necessary to conduct pig-raising, two farmers in the Waikato district had laid pipes to a river to drain off the skim milk from large dairy herds.