FARM AND DAIRY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 60, 6 September 1907, Page 4

FARM AND DAIRY.

MANAGEMENT OF COWS. This was the subject of a lecture l>y Mr Gerald M. Strutt, of .Withatn, to farmers and others in tile Colchester Corn Exchange ,(England) recently. In opening, he remarked that lie realisel his difficulty in dealing with such a subject as "The management of cows," as to what particular branch of such a big subject he should try and deal with, and especially so when he realised tint liis audience consisted of a practical, up-to-date farmers. Illustrating his subject with a couple of splendidly-pre-pared "cow book" tables and the lil.irk,board, the lecturer observed that bearing in mind dairy fanners did not keep cows for pleasure or to look at, but were all of one mind, and bad the same object in view, £ s. d., it behoved them to find out from which cows they could get the greatest possible amount of milk at the least possible expense. To the farmer who kept a few cows and did not go jn for breeding and selecting his dijiry stock, but bought in a cow when he"'was short of milk, and sold her out fat, perhaps the system of individual milk recording was waste of time. But to the farmer who kept a fair number of cows, and wished to improve his stock, it was most essential. He thought there could be few farmers (who did not keep records) who had any idea of the erroneous difference there was in the milking capacity of individual cows. The records on the lecturer's own' farms of about 1000 to 1200 cows showed a very marked range of from 400 to 1400 gallons per year. Pausing for a moment to consider the difference in value between two particular cows, Mr Strutt first of all took Toy. Her milking capacity averaged 1030 gallons per year. This, sold at Bd, realised £34 10s 83; the cost of labor (food, loss on calving, roots,, grazing, etc.') came to £ls) 10s; thus leaving a profit of £ls 0s Bd. Willing gave 599 gallons, which at 8d produced £l9 18s 8d; labor, etc., came to £l9 10s; leaving a profit _of 8s Bd. (Laughter). Breeding for milk should be the aim and object of all dairy-far-mers. Personally, he felt that the milk-producing capacity of dairy cows could be greatly increased by proper selection and breeding, but he did not wish his hearers to run off with the idea that because they had a cow that was a good milker her offspring was of a necessity going to be a wonder. He was a firm believer that like produced like, and that the bull was' more than half the battle in breeding for milk. He should come out of a cow of a fixed dairy type, and be got by a bull with a similar milking jiedigree. This had been the system abroad for years, with the result that they had far outstripped us in the methods of dairyfarming. Abroad it was a matter of common occurrence to find herds of cows that gave anything from 800 to 1000 gallons per head per year, and they heard people in this country wondering how it was they were able to send their dairy product here at the prices they did. The lecturer said he was fully aware that there were many methods for feeding dairy cows, also that there was a big difference of opinion as to

the amount they should cost for artificial food, etc., but, bearing in mind their object, utility and profit, his experience was that there was- a distinct limit to the amount of food that could be profitably fed to a cow. Here, again,

the Danish and other farmers abroad scored by their scientific, judicious, and skilful feeding. On the point of feeding individual cows, according to the milk produced, Mr Strutt instanced the case of a farmer who fed his cows very highly, and circumstances necessitated a considerable reduction in the quantity of grains he was using; he was surprised to find that his cows, even after this reduction, still maintained their milk. It was pretty evident from this that these extra grains were practically thrown away. In conclusion, the lecturer advised his hearers that cows were not like machines; some people liked to make them out to lie, that the more they stuffed into them the better the quality and greater the quantity you would get it; so much depended on the individual cow, on her capacity to produce milk and deal with the food supplied. It was impossible to lay down any hard and fast rule what that lunit should be. Here was one of the difficulties of the dairy farmer, to get the. cowman to feed with any real intelli-

gence. It seemed impossible to them to know when and where to stop feeding; his idea was to see so many fat bullocks (as it were), and woo betide the balance-sfieet at the end of the year if he had had free access to the granary.