FARMING NOTES

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 10710, 2 November 1912, Page 7

FARMING NOTES

I (By "Mail on the Land.")

DAIRY FARMING. Tho art of dairy farming consists in obtaining tho greatest returns irom cows and from land, whilst at the same time maintaining and increasing the fertility of tho soil and gradually improving tho yield and the constitution of tho cows. We have in New Zealand something over 700.000 dairy I cows and it is worth while taking a I little trouble to show how much money j they yield. Allowing that 700,000 cows j are in yield an average yield of £9 per cow would mean a total annual yield of £0,300,000. These figures, of course, are only approximate, but assuming that they are correct it is only a very simple matter to show that if we lifted the average yield of all our cows to the average of cur good herds we should lift the total value to over £10,000,000, and if we lifted it to anything near the average of our best cows the (otal yield would be £14,000.000 per year. A cow per acre and .500 pounds of

butter-fat per cow is a stmdnrd well within range of practical possibility, and it is one that we have urged on our dairy-farmers as well worth working for. It would mean 2,100,000 cow.s instead of 700.000. and it would mean close on £50,000,000 pounds a year instead of £6,300,000. This seems an extra.gavent estimate, but no one. can deny that it i.s possible and the £.50,000.000 worth of dairy produce would just as easily find n market in a few years hk our present output does. It is estimated tint it costs on an average £8 per year to keep and milk 1 a cow in New Zenlaiuf. Everything above £-8 i.s profit, everything below it is generally loss. If we take the trouble to analyse the figures published by any cow-testing association wc ' shall be impressed by the fact of the immense difference between the yield of cows milked for our numerous fac- j torios. Mr .T. Biirnc, the tester for ■ the Thames Valley Association, recently supplied statistics which illustrate this point. During the last season he and his assistants tested 2078 cows, the best cow give a return of £27 7s from buttftr fat. the worst cow gave £2. The ten best cow.s averaged j921 175., tho ten worst cows averaged £4. The average association cow gave £l2 2s, hut there were only 11 herds above this average whilst there were .50 herds below it. The best 20 herds averaged only £9 Is. and the worst 20 herds averaged £5 6s-. ft does not require much financial ability to estimate the difference between milking a cow which only gives £2 for the seison and one who gives £27 7s, nor i.s there much difficulty in realising the difference in pro/its between the man whose here' only gives him an average of £5 fis for the. season and the man whose herd averages £l-5 Bs. If it coats £8 per year to keep and milk a cow, . jind it no doubt does cost this on highpriced land with proper feeding and •attention, the herd which only averages £.5 6s is lieing kept and milked at a considerable loss, and under no conceivable circumstances could .such cow yield any profit. Tn New Zealand the cost of keeping and milking; a cow is estimated at £8 per year. On this basis the cost per pound of butter fat to the farmer is as follows: —For a cow yielding .VI7I b (a common average in New Zealand), per pound. Some of the herds recently tested-in the. Auckland distinct averaged as low as 1001b of butter fat per cow. This made the cost of producing butter fat equal to Is 6d per pound. Some of the really bad cows tested last season averaged only 801b of butter fat, and thi,s made the cost of butter fat nearly 2s per pound, whilst one or two cows tested gave only a little over 40 lb of butter fat which costs the Farmer nearly 4s per pound. It will be, seen, therefore, that assuming the cost of keeping and milking a cow costs £8 per year, some cows give a profit per pound of butter fat equal to BJd per pound, and some cf>ws gave loss per pound of butter fat equal to 3s per pound. A farmer need not milk many poor cows to bring his general average down to a low figure, and he need not milk really many good cows to give him much bigger profits than he can get from a large average herd.—New Zealand Herald.