HOW FARMERS ARE CHEATED BY THEIR COWS.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 168, 25 April 1916, Page 1

HOW FARMERS ARE CHEATED BY THEIR COWS.

We again urge upon dairy farmers the importance ct taking up cow-testing in connection with cooperative creameries. The revelation with regard to the value ot cows in a fcerd revesl d hy the cow-testing associations already working, should make fßrme;s, who do not systematically test the value of milk given by each cow and weed out the inferior animals, suspicious that they are keeping cows which not only do not pay for their krep, but actually are a lobs to their owners. The revelationsjjot toe cow-testiog associations should create in f aimers at I ast as much interest as a u-port of a business expert would arouse in the propriety of a big factory if the expert explained that such atd sach of the employees weie systematically embezzling the motey of farmers who are so careleEs as cot to sie that the cows do the work for which they receive hoard 'and lodging- - , it may make farmers look into the matter. Our ontrlbutor points out the yield of cows in a district varied from 176 gallons to 72'J gallons, or trom 591bs of butter fat to 2b"4lbe, and if one takes butter fat to be of the value of one shilling and threepance per lb, the earning power ot the cows would vary from £3 14s to £l6 10s, and if one adds to thes3 figures the vaiuj of skim milk and tben from the total deducts the cost of cost of feeding, Übour, etc., it will appear that the 175 gallon cow had embezzled money from its employer to the extent if £2 14s 3d, while the rr.ore industrious cjw which gave 729 galions tamed for its employer a net sum of <£U 18s Bd. Now, it these cows were men in business, and the loss or profit were disclosed by an audi', would nut the man who embezzled £2 14s 3d be ducharged at once and an efficient substitute trund? Of course that would happer, and farmers who neglect cow testing are impoverishing themselves. By their neglect of a matter to which their attention has been called tor years they have allowed the actual yield of milk from dairy cows to decline rather than improve, while it is*in their power in a few years of weeding out to increase the value of milk fiom their herds by a couple of million pounds. What are we to think of the slight attention pind to the subject of cow testing? Are our farmers people who will ever learn to be businessmen? We.wtnder. Anyhow, let them read tto article and ask themselves whether any of their cows are swindling them or not."—"N.Z. Dairyman."