IS THE JERSEY ON TOP?

Taranaki Daily News, 26 August 1918, Page 7

IS THE JERSEY ON TOP?

To the Editor. Sir,—Now' that the very amusing argument concerning the Jersey cow seems to be fizzling, out, I should like to ask Mr Hanford and these fine Jersey unaneiers what proof they have that the Jersey is on top. If they take the trouble to look through the February issue of the Journal of Agriculture they will find that the average production of Fresian, cevs under semi-official test.is 1300 a Lbs. of milk and 465 lbs- of fat, A'hile the Jersey average is 71177 lbs of milk and 389 lbs of fat. This means a difference of ~>9r?.s Mw. of milk and 60 lbs of fat- The difference in the amount of fat at Is 9d per lb comes to £5 12s 'Oil, while 434 gal. of '•skim dick" at Id a gal. comes to £1 15s 3d. or a total amount in favor of the Friesian of £7 7s fld. If £6 is a fair estimate of the jost of feeding a cow for 12 .months, then the Fresian will make enough to pav for the upkeep of an extra cow, as well as the extra amount of feed they take and then b« equal with .'■he "good little cow.'' The highest record for a Friesian cow in New Zealand stands at. 24,190 lbs. and S3© lbs. of fat, while the Jersey record is 111,703 lbs and 7<JB of fat, or a difference of i 176 lbs of fat which at Is 9d a lb comeß to £ls Bs. Up to the end of 1917 there were 32 Friesinn cows that have given over COO lbs of fat while I doubt if Mr SRanford can find a dozen Jerseys to do the same. To show your readers what the "Black and Writes" are doing in America, T will give you an extract from a letter which appeared in the "Farmer" , and written by TT. A. Hopper, (Professor of Animal Husbandry in Cornell University: "The conspicuous position held by Friesians in America is an open book, They hold the majority of the high record?. Within the past ten years high records of production have been broken so uniformly and frequently by Fresian "ows that officials hav? hesitated to report these records as such for. fear they would again be exceeded before the ink wrts dry. Until recently it seemed impossible for a cow to produce 1000 lbs of milk in a week. A Friesian has done it. Tn the same manner it seems unthinkable that a cow could produce 1500 lbs of butter in a year. A Friesian has done this i'.iso. When the writer was privileged to do some official testing in 1901 as an undergraduate, the high records soared around 26 lbs of butter per week. I do net recall that any except Friesian breeders talked much about 30 lbs per.week, -and T doubt if any dreamed of 40 lbs per week. It is now generally known that two Friestans have seven-day records of -!4 lbs of butter, and one of these cows is only four years old. One Fresian ettvyhas produced in one year 31,C00 pounds or ISV, tons of milk. Of 583 cows in the world that have produced 24 lbs of fat in seven days 578 arc Friesians." As for the high prices that are being given for Jersey eows, has any of the breed been sold for 500 guineas, the price of the best Friesian cow in New Zealand? In conclusion, I should like to <mv that on most dinner tables in Taranaiki you will find the juicy rump steak from the "right'' cow and not the switch from the "economical" little Jersey.—! am, etc., H. G. MUIR, Oaontii, August 31, 1918.