THE DAIRYING INDUSTRY.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9043, 31 January 1908, Page 7

THE DAIRYING INDUSTRY.

. PEDIGREE MILKERS. AIMS OF MR McNAB. The Hon. R. McNab, in the course of an interview at Giaborne, gave an interesting outline of the history of his scheme for establishing Government herds of pedigree milkers. ''Following upon my speech at Palmerston North," he said, "in regard to the scheme I brought forward on the vei-y important question of dairy herds, I have been communicating with a number of men interested in the dairying industry in different parts of the country. I have anioffesrmow of £I,OOO, and I hope to get this supplemented. The difficulty which was raised by some of those communicated with was concentrating a 1: Ine point. A man offered to give me £5,000 to purchase a farm in the Wellington district, and £I,OOO for the establishment of a milking herd tf Shorthorns at that farm. It involved, .however, the establishment of a new farm within easy reach of the one already in operation, and, after careful consideration, it was decide! that, as it would involve an expenditure of £i,500 per annum over receipts, we had to decline the offer. My deal in this matter was appreciated by a lot of leading men. Mr G. P. Donnelly, of Waimaramp, Hawke's Bay, presented a number of purebrod heifers, and they will be sent to Ruakura, and others will be obtained from England." As to what is being done with the Shorthorn material at Levin, MriLMcNab said; "At the present time;' chiefly in the South Island, and over a large portion of the North ; Island, the Shorthorn is the favourite \ milker to buyers. They can get no guarantee when purchasing Shorthorns that they are not getting beef rather than milk, and they offer, within certain reasonable limits, almost anything to get bulls with a pedigree that give a fair chance of producing milk strains, rather than buy in the open market Ever since the scheme was suggested, I have received a continual stream of letters on the matter, and I can say with confidence that a couple of hundred b2asta a year could be disposed of without the slightest difficulty, having a State guarantee. We have tried i all methods to secure the best milking | cows for the Levin herd, and we have I fouad only one way to test it, that is j by\ bucket and scales. There is no j other way—at least no other way has been successful with us. We hope that by doing this we will be able to raise very materially within a few years the quantity of milk produced from the cows of the dominion, j The aim at Levin is to produce an average of 10,0001b of milk per cow i per season, and we already have a j number of cows whose record is in excess of that quantity." J