INCREASING OUTPUT

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 368, 31 May 1928, Page 12

INCREASING OUTPUT

HOW TESTING IMPROVES HERDS ONE ORGANISATION FAVOURED (From Our Own Correspondent) HAMILTON, Wednesday. One herd-testing association for the whole of the South Auckland district was favoured at a meeting of co-operative dairy companies at Hamilton yesterday. Mr. Dynes Fulton, chairman of directors of the New Zealand Co-opera-tive Herd-Testing Association presided. Mr. Fulton said his association was now testing about 70,000 cows or twothirds of those under test in New Zealand. In the district there still existed two other herd-testing organisations, but since the interests of all dairy farmers were identical in herd-testing, and because of obvious economic and other reasons, including the prevention of overlapping in work, it was patent that one organisation for the whole of South Auckland was desirable. INCREASED SUBSIDY WANTED The New Zealand Association, he said, had been instrumental in securing from the Government a subsidy of £B,OOO this season toward herd-test-ing all over the Dominion, and was now making efforts to have it increased. Mi. Fulton said the New Zealand Co-operative Dairy Co., Ltd., had guaranteed the association finance to the extent of about £7,000, but would re - duce its representation on the board if factories generally linked up in one organisation and shared in the financial responsibilities. Mr. C. M. Hume, general manager of the New Zealand Herd-Testing Association, quoted the records of the association to show the great improvement in yield per cow effected in the short time it had been in operation. He cited, too. the case of an individual farmer who in five years, by testing, bad increased the yield of bis cows from 1301 b to 2841 b of buttcr-fat a cow, MARKING CALVES Mi. Hume strongly emphasised the value of the calf-marking scheme inaugurated by the New Zealand Testing Association, saying it preserved for the industry the calves of highyielding cows, and that was the most potent factor in the profitable expansion of the industry and guarded against a man buying dairy stock in the dark. Dealing with bulls, Mr. Hume said that if all herds were headed by a pedigree bull the average butter-fat yield in the Waikato would in three years or so be increased by 501 b to 60)b.