FARM AND DAIRY.

Taranaki Daily News, 30 July 1921, Page 12

FARM AND DAIRY.

THE WORLD’S MEAT. * “ _ NEW ZEALAND’S WONDERFUL POSITION. PROVIDED 70 PER CENT. OF MUTTON AND LAMB LN 1915. The United States Bureau of Crop Estimates has been diverging from the study of crops to say something about , the world’s supply of meat. This is particularly interesting to New Zealand, as the figures show the large share provided by this country. As far as mutton and lamb were concerned New Zealand was preeminent in 1915 as the world’s supplier. Here is an extract from the article referred to:

‘‘Argentine’s share of the world’s export meat trade, which for many years has been next below that of the United States, declined from 28 per cent, in 1913 to 25.2 per cent, in 1915, but rose to 28.5 per cent, in 1917, and rapidly to 34.3 per cent, in 1918. Beginning with 1911, that country has supplied more than one-half of the world’s beef export, excepting 1916 and 1917, when it was not convenient to do so. Argentina’s beef fraction for 1913 was 55.3, for 1916 it was 46.8, and for 1918 it was 15.6.

“Australia has long supplied from onetenth co one-fifth of the world’s beef exports, but the war caused the fraction te fall below one-tenth, and 1918 to 8.4 per cent.

“New Zealand supplied 44 per cent, of the world’s export, mutton and lamb in 1913, and increased the fraction to 70 per cent, in 1915, but there was - a recession to the former 44 per cent, in 1918. Argentina has usually exceeded Australia as a source of mutton and lamb supply, and did so during the war, in the last year of which it was prot iding 35 per cent, of the world’s total, while Australia provided 19 per cent.

“In the international pork supply the United States has left but little room for any other country. Indeed, Canada is the only country that a share large enough to be seen. It was 3 per cent, of the world’s total in 1913, and the fraction gained year by year to 13 per cent, in 1918.

The rise of Brazil, China, and British South Africa into some prominence as meat-exporting countries during the war is notable, especilaly Brazil. From a nominal export of 1,700,UU0 pounds of meat from Brazil in 1913 and J 914, the quantity jumped to 94,000,000 pounds in 1916, to 230,000,000 pounds in 1917, and to 251,000,000 pounds in 1919, of which 146,000,000 pounds was beef, 40,000,000 pounds pork, and 59,0u0,000 unidentified

“China was exporting from 50,000,000 to 65,900.000 pounds of beef and pork from 1912 to 1915. The quantity became 101.000,000 pounds in 1917, and rose to 148,000,000 pounds in 1919. From British South Africa meat exports, mostly beef, increased from about 500,00 P pounds at the time the war began to 18,030,000 pounds by 1916 and to 46,500,000 pounds by 1919.

“Not until 1909 did beef exceed pork in the world’s exporis. From the year before the war began to 1918, the last year of the war, beef, as a fraction of total meat exports for the world, grew from 42.7 to 46.1 per cent., pork grew from 33.7 to 35.5 per cent., and mutton lost in their favor, with a decline from 3.6 to 5.6 per cent.”

Carnation King Sylvia, the Friesian bull which whs sold by Mr. A. C. Hardy, of Canada for £21,000 at the national Holstein l9lB, is dead. This sire was 34 years of age when pneumonia caused his death. Insurance totalling £lO,OOO was carried. Carnation King Sylvia had been used on the daughters of Matador Segis Walker, and had sired 91 calves.

There is very keen enquiry in Southland for dairy stock at the present tune, but cows are very hard tn locate, states the Southland Times.- Clearing sales just now are very few, and for those offering privately there are many eager buyers fyr there is plenty of feed for wintering. At a sale at Benmore reeenWy. the tops touched £2l. Despite a drop in the British produce, market,. good cows will sell up to £35 -again in the spring. A great many dairymen are installing milking machines, which is sure evidence of intention to increase

existing herds. Not all cows are allowed to go dry for a sufficient length of time to put them in good shape for another long period of qiilk production. In most large herds and in purebred herds the cows are given a good' chance to rest and flesh-up Wore freshening, but less experienced dairymen often allow the cows to milk continuously, under which method they Lave no chance to recuperate, and are thus handicapped at calving time. Authorities state that a cow will give more milk if she is dried up lor a period of six weeks before calving than if she is milked continuously. The explanation of this lies in the fact that milk production is hard work, and the cow gets no rest from calving to calving unless it is provided for her by drying her off. It is sometimes said that the effect of milking continuously is to weaken the calf, but Eckle’s observations do not, he says, bear out this statement. Injury to the cow rather than to the. calf is likely to follow. Probably ii a cow is very thin and in poor condition the calf may be weakened to some extent. but the maternal instinct and the nature of lhe cow's body is to take care of the foetus first at the expense of the dam. It is too much to expect that the double burden of milk production and the foetus can be undergone by the average cow up to the. time of freshening without injury to herself.

As an instance of what can be done by intelligent work on a small farm, an ex-southerner who owns 96 acres of land in the Papakura district, where the soil originally was by no means fertile, has taken from this area during the past 1 year a total of £l3OO. states the Herald. This was done by' keeping good cows, growing good grass, and providing a moderate supply of root and fodder crops. The average yield per cow for the was £4O. About 30 per cent, of their yield was sold as fresh milk to the city, the remaining 70 per cent, being sent to the dairy factory. The balance of z the return was obtained from the sale of surplus hay, etc. This farmer believes that he could obtain as large a return from even a smaller area of land. Most of the returns come from pasture which is kept in excellent condition, but great assistance, was derived from the growth of soft turnips, rape, and maize. By far the best' cropI ping results were obtained from soft turnips, which can be sown from Octo*ber to March, and which provide feed | from the end o-f January to early spring, : when grass is once more in good growth. I Experience has shown this fatmer that I if other feed is provided besides soft i turnips, the milk cooled as soon as it ' comes from the cow, and the turnips fed At SWltaff is

taint is found in the milk. As a matter of fact, he received 5-8 d extra for quality through the driest parts of the year.

[ “In my tour through England and ( Scotland a matter that struck me most j forcibly,” said ?»Ir. W. D. Hunt in a I paper reaxl before the Council of Agri- | culture, “and one that. I thought wo ?could take a lesson from in New Zealand, was the careful manner in which they fed their live stock. Wherever I went the stock seemed to have abundance of feed, and from our New Zealand, point of view the country was understocked. I do not think I saw a single place where the stock did not seem to have all the feed that they required. In a smaller tour through New Zealand you would find a very large proportion of the properties you passed with the stock on them looking as if they could do with a bit more feed. Overstocking is very prevalent in this country—lt is practically non-existent in Great Britain We have been grazing stock in this country for. a little more than a generation, whereas in Great Britain they have centuries of experience behind them. It was quite evident from whit [ saw there that the lesson of the evil effects of overstocking has been thoroughly learned in Great Britain. In this country many of our farmers have still a lot to learn in this direction.” “What I saw of the agricultural life and doings in the United States was chiefly in the States of Minnesota. AV‘Cconsin, Illinois, and lowa.” said Mr. W. D. Hunt in a paper read before the Council of Agriculture last. week. “Of all that I saw, what perhaps struck me more forcibly than anything else was the use that they make of silos. It seems to me that we can take a lesson from them in this respect of advantage to ourselves, particularly in connection with our dairying industry. The silos are not met with just occasionally; they are literally there in thousandr ; practically every farm has them. The modern silo is a circular erection built of reinforced concrete,‘ and they run to a tremendous height. 'Klio usual diameter is anything from ten to twenty feet, and they generally run in height from four to six times the diameter. The highest I saw was 91) feet high, but I was told that they sometimes run considerably over 100 feet. I inquired- as to the cost of buiMing these, and was amazed at the cheapness and rapidity with which they are constw6eted .... I ■feel sure that silos built on the American system would he a groat value to dairy-farmers in this country.”