PASTURES & MILK

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 August 1938, Page 3

PASTURES & MILK

BEST RESULTS FROM GRASS. A controversy has been raging for some months in England for and against pasteurisation of milk. In the course of an article in the Home Farmer a writer says:—“ln the controversy on pasturisation too little attention has been paid to the wide variation produced in the quality of milk/ apart from its bacterial character, by different systems of feeding cattle, though the League’s experts certainly noted Dr. Corry Mann’s results in giving “grass-fed” New Zealand butter to schoolboys in which an intake of 387 calories daily led to an average gain in weight over a year of 6.31 b. per boy, and increase in height of 2.22 inches. Importance is attached to the fact that this butter was “grass-fed,” though probably the only justification for this description is that most New Zealand butter is produced from cows) at grass all the year round. We have, however, plenty of evidence to show us that the best milk is obtained from grass, and the producer has every inducement to develop this source of his supply. He can both reduce his costs and improve his output equally in respect of volume and of quality by spending more and more time on grass cultivation and less money on concentrates. The pasturage of England and Wales permits of the average dairy cow having about an acre and a-half of grazing for about 150 days in the year. In that time the cow will consume some 371 cwt. of dry matter in the form of grass, but beyond maintaining her in condition, this grass will produce less than 200 gallons of milk.