GOOD BULLS ESSENTIAL.

Putaruru Press, Volume IV, Issue 117, 21 January 1926, Page 6

GOOD BULLS ESSENTIAL.

FOR HERD IMPROVEMENT. Where Testing is Required. Herd testing is fast becoming generally acknowledged as an essential adjunct to the dairying industry but. to what extent its use is necessary is a question regarding which divergent views are held. The prime object as recognised by all is to provide the farmer with the necessary knowledge of each unit of his herd to cull the unprofitable ones. But how to replace them ? The practice widely resorted to is to go to the stock sales, where in many cases other people’s culls are bought up, the replacements often being no better, if as good, as the ones already deleted. It is true that the aims of the N.Z. Co-op. Herd-testing Association, if carried into effect, will give buyers pt stock sales some indication of the class of animal they are purchasing, but such a system of marking that the association has i:i

, view has not yet materialised. In the meantime the wiser men cull to replace with heifers they have good reason to believe will be far more profitable than their rejects. To do this there is no better way than foe farmers to breed their own heifers from good bulls. This is partly the aims of the herd-testing association in its calf-marking scheme, which may be taken as an acknowledgment that testing takes second place to the use of good bulls by farmers. A discussion on these lines took place recently between Mr. F. E. Har- ’ ris, of Walton, and a Morrinsvil’e Star reporter who paid a visit to Mr. Harris’ farm of 380 acres. While realising the important part testing could play in the dairying industry, < Mr. Harris was of the opinion that the money at present spent on herd testing by many farmers was wasted because they had no means of re- ' placing the culls. Many dairy farmers, said Mr. Harris, declared that they were not in a position to purchase pedigree bulls, yet they tested for butter. In the latest London market report cheese is quoted at 98s—• 100 s, and butter a + 168s—170s, the latter figure being the basis for the December pay-out for butter. The i company’s cheese suppliers must view 4 with some satisfaction the pay-outs for the period up to the end of December, and although the company’s sale contract expires then, in all probability they will receive very fair prices for the cheese to be manufactured during the next month or two (states the Waikato Independent). We are informed that during the past month a number of suppliers have changed over from butter to cheese supply, but it seems to us unfortunate for those and many others also that they did not concentrate on the chaF-: e supply when good payable prices w-. 3 assured to them. So far the butter market for this season has been dis- jM appointing, but it would appear to be " a sound conclusion to come to that, although there may be short period's of high prices, the competition fi'onx other countries and the curtailed spending power of the people at Home are factors which will in the future keep butter prices at about their present level.