FARM AND DAIRY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 81899, 5 December 1906, Page 3

FARM AND DAIRY.

Want of success in dairying is often due to pool management. In New ioik State (says D. E. Salmon, in tae "County Gentleman ), where lor so many yeais dairying has been one of the principal branches of agriculture, the average yield per cow is but 2051b per year. Anyone who proposes to conduct a profitable dairy business should have a herd of cows which will yield an average of not less than 3oolb of buuer per year. There are many such cows, and a lower average should not be tolerated. There may be a difference 0 f opinion as to whether it costs more to feed a herd averaging .joolb of butter than it doe-, to feed a herd averaging ;oolb; but it may be conceded that a larger yield requires more feed than the smaller one. It also appears reason able to assume that if the calf of a cow making the smaller yield is worth £2, that of the cow making the larger yield should be worth £3. lhe progressive daiiyman should not be satisfied,, howeA-r, with a herd which averages 3oolbs, which is only a fair yield for a grade herd, but

should build u)t a pute-bied herd with an average of not Ji-ss than 4oolbs. Such a dairy should and probably would >-('11 its butter f"r more than tod per lb. and it might also realise more than i,"io per head for its calves. It is unnecessary to extead these figure- to a greater length, although 400 II- is by no means to be consTdeied as the limit which the modern dairyman should get as the height of his ambition. ft was recently stated 'hat til' 1 secretary of the Vermont lizard of Agriculture was breeding a rate of dairy cattle that would with out forcing yield Onolbs of butter per year; but while this seem- a large 'liiant iy, it is not io be forgotten thai individual cows have done much better. There is one principal obstacle to t!,e development of the dairy eow which should no longer be allowed to exist. 1 hat is ihe lack of apprecia 1 i°n of (he value of ernvs which yield

over 3oolbs of butter a yeai . The iverago dairyman is not striving to get such cows, and i- not willing to take them from the breeder at their teal value, and, consequently, theie

are not as many persons engaged in producing them as there 'lmuld be. If we are given the opportunity to buy dairy eow- which w ll yield from loolbs to soolbs of butter a year, the pioblcrns of profnable dairying and of the improvement of deteriorated farms may be considered solved. In the above the cows have not been 1 credited with the value of their manure, which with well fed herds would be a large item, and which, when soil improvement is an object, should re ceive constant attenton. If thfse fertilising constituents arc returned to the soil where crops are grown, with as little loss a» possible, cither by leaching or volatilisation, .it} olain that some profit may be obtained from the cow that produces but joolb« of buU«r per 'year,' ,