FARM AND DAIRY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 344, 21 March 1910, Page 7

FARM AND DAIRY.

BUTTER MOISTURE. TARANAKI FARMERS' DIFFICULTIES. GOVERNMENT FINDS A WAY OUT. Considerable trouble has been experienced owing to excessive moisture in butter produced by Tarana»ki settlers. It has been shown that they are not wilful offenders in the matter. To meet the difficulties which the makers of private dairy butter are experiencing in preventing their butter containing an excess of moisture, the Hon. T. Mackenzie (Minister of Agriculture) is considering a proposal which he hopes, with the concurrence and assistance of settlers, to give effect to.

It has been suggested by tlu Director of the Dairy Produce Division that a depot be established at one or more of the central slhippmg ports, through which the makers oi dairy tatter would have the privilege of sending their produce. As such a depot, it would be tested before shipment, and, in some cases, where any excess of moisture in the butter was detected, it could be reworked and repacked before being shipped, for a small charge, estimated at 6d per box. Those dairymen who elected to send their butter through this depot would avoid the risk of being prosecuted for a fault in their produce which some of them cannot avoid, owing to the adverse conditions under which this class of butter is made on many oi the farms. This serious defect is largely brought about by the excessively warm weather, and the lack of any cooling medium for controlling the moisture content of their hutter. Those dairymen, of coarse, who did not avail themselves of this privilege would have to take the risk of being proceeded against if their tatter happened to contain more than 16 per cent, of water.

It is thought that the expense involved in providing the facilities referrea to would not be heavy. There would be the necessity, however, of the employment of an extra man to treat the butter under the guidance of the dairy produce grader at the port of shipment.

j Although the full details of the pro- . posal have not yet been considered, J there seems to be no serious obstacle i in the way of carrying cut the scheme. Considerable trouble and annoyance ha 9 been caused to settlers by their butter being withheld from shipment, which has necessitated the sale of it locally to someone who has the facilities for re-working the butter and shipping it under the ordinary milled brand. When thus disposed of, the dairymen have also to stand the loss of receiving a lower price for their 'butter than ( would be the case if it were shipped to ; the British market in the ordinary way. It may be mentioned that the Depart-. . meat's officers have kept a strict super- ; vision over a-U butter passing through i the different grading stores, from the ' point of view of its moisture content, 1 and, while the Government is very anxious to avoid taking legal proceedings against any of the producers, who, owing to the disadvantages under which they have to work, cannot he':i making butter which contains more moisture than that laid down in the Dairy Inj dustry Act, the necessity of protecting j the good name of New Zealand butter ! on the British market has to be kept in

mind. ' "Of course," stated the Minister when explaining the proposals to a .New Zealand Times representative, "it must t>«) clearly understood that what is proposed is only to affect butter produced in private dairies, because of the fact already stated, that they are unable during the warmer months to control the moisture the butter contains, and also in order to assist that class of the butter industry. As regards dairy lac- • tories and packing houses, there can, j of course, be no excuse for butter from ' such containing excessive moisture, as ; they can have the facilities for controlling it. It is gratifying, however, to ue able to report that practically no excessive moisture has been discovered in dairy factory butter this season. This is exceedingly satisfactory, and justifies I the firm action which the Government recently took with regard to excessive ' moisture, in the face of much opposition, and we see the effects no doubt in ' the splendid position occupied in the i Home market at the present time, | where our butter is commanding 130s per cwt., as against 126s for Australian and 137s for Danish. It is not so very long since the price for Danish butter on the British market was much more above the price obtained for the New I Zealand article, the difference being as much as 12s per cwt."

IMPROVING DAIRY CATTLE, VALUABLE DATA.

Tor ten years past a series of dairy cattle breeding experiments has been conducted by the New South Wales Department of Agriculture at the Woollongbar Experimental Farm in that State. The principal object of the experiments was to determine the influence of the sire in relation to the milk yield of his progeny, and to see if it is possible to cross out beef and cross in milk in a generation or two through the .influence of the bull. The data accumulated are of great moment and practical value to breeders tliQ world ov>n\ They are set out in the current number of the New South Wales Agricultural Gazette. The main lessons furnished by the experiments are:—(l) The wonderful influence of the sire on the milking characteristics of his progeny; (2) the comparatively small influence of tlie dam on the milk-yielding powers of its progeny; (3) the inability of a heavy milk yielding cow to convey through her sons her deep milking characteristics; (4) the ability of a purebred sire, well bred on both sides for a number of generations from a dairy point of view, to cross milk into beef cattle in one generation; (5) the great value of the Guernsey as a sire for the purpose of mating with Shorthorn cattle of any strain. The results of the mating of the beef cow Bella with three bulls or different breeds must rank amongst the finest educational series of stock experiments which have ever been published. In this case, a beef cow that averages on the best of the pastures only 38001b of milk for the three years' observation, when crossed with a Guernsey bull produced a cow that on her third calf gave 87201b of milk, or a butter yield of 401 lb in one season. Further crosses prove that this was not what breeders would call a "sport." When the same beef «ow was mated with the imported Ayrshire lull Daniel the progeny gave 64171b of milk in an

! ordinary milking period or "00 days. I Significant, then, is to learn I'iat with the mating of this same cow with that fine dairy Shorthorn bull Dora's Boy I the progeny, a nice cow to look al, while she exceeded her mother's results, only gftvc 42501b of milk on her second calf, and the milking period was a short one, viz., 215 days. The greatest discrepancy is shown in the quantity of butter, which was only 1031b on her second calf and 1791b on her first calf, a.s •jainst 3451b by the Guernsey cross on Jier second calf and 407 lb on her third calf. Here is shown that great influence of the specialised dairy breeds, the Guernsey and the Ayrshire, a- against the dairy Shorthorn bull, whose mother was a very high-class cow, and whose father got heifers of fair milk-yielding powers when mated with crossbred*. Practically speaking, results show the line of milk is carried through the sire, and not through the dams. Educational, therefore, as the experiments are up to this point, the lesson is driven home more strongly by tile results of the mating of two purebred dairy Shorthorns, Lady Dora and Honey 10th (imp.) Taking Lady Dora, we see in her yields evidences of a great cow, she having given as much as 95601b of milk in a season. One of her progeny, by a Shorthorn hull, gave only on Tier third calf 28031b, and her second heifer by a different Shorthorn bull gave also a very poor yield, but she died too young to get a full milking period. It would thus have appeared that Lady Dora was incapable of throwing good dairy heifers, but it is found that when mated with a bull of great characteristics, viz., Peter (imp.), a Guernsey, the progeny, a cow named Doreen, has given an average of 700 gallons of milk per year during her first five years, although on orte of these she slipped a caK'and on her fifth calf she gave as much as 77761b of milk in 280 days. Nothing could go to support the influence of the sire, .•which would show in the mating with the beef cow, which would be calculated to drive home and establish the theory that the sire is the mam influence in milk getting, than do these results with Lady Dora. She shows clearly that, no matter how good the cow is, unless the bull with which she has been mated is a true dairy sire on both sides, the results will be poor.

Similar results were obtained by mating the imported Honey 10th with different bulls. Here is a fair cosv herself, with rather a tendency to leei, and when mated with a Shorthorn bull results were poor, but when mated with the Guernsey bull Peter the tendency to beef is cross out, and a dairy cow is produced that gives on her fifth calf as much as 72051b of milk, which made 3831b of milk.