IMPROVED FEEDING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 August 1938, Page 3

IMPROVED FEEDING

VALUE OF HOME SCIENCE. When speaking at a meeting of the Farmers’ Club, London, Mr W. S. Mansfield, M.A., Director of the University Farm, Cambridge, stated that stock breeding was an art and not a science. “When Mendel’s work was re-discovered in 1900 and the science of genetics as we know it to-day was fairly launched,” he said, “great things were expected of it.” It was anticipated that it would not only solve the difficulties of the plant breeder, but would, in course of time, be of material assistance to the breeder of stock as well. These early hopes have not been fulfilled. Genetics have been of little real assistance to the breeder of the larger animals, and although it has been able to do more to help plant breeders,' yet I have the highest authority for saying that even plant breeding still remains an art. It may be that in the future the geneticist will be able to help the stock breeder more, but as time goes on and the complicated nature of the problem becomes more and more apparent hope grows fainter, and I think that stock breeding is likely to remain an art indefinitely. BENEFITS OF SCIENCE. “Having said as much, I hasten to add that no one recognises more than I the benefits that science has conferred on the stock breeder,” continued Mr Mansfield. “I am thinking more particularly of the animal pathologists, nutritionists and psysiologists. I have no time to refer to the work of the veterinarians. They have solved many problems for us in the past and I am confident that they will help us still

more in the future. I should, however, like to say something about the work of the other two. There is an old saying that I am very fond of quoting, and I quote it so often that my pupils get very tired of hearing it ‘half the pedigree goes in at the mouth.’ There is no practical breeder here, I am sure, who will dispute its truth. “Stock improvement goes hand in hand with improved feeding. One is complementary to the other, .and neither can thrive alone. It has always been so. It was so in the days of that great pioneer, Robert Bakewell. It is so still. BADLY-BRED CATTLE. Badly-bred cattle which have been well done all their lives make better beasts than well-bred cattle that have been starved during the early part of their existence, whatever their subsequent treatment may be. It is only when an animal has been reared on a high plane of nutrition that it is possible for it to develop the potentialities of which, by reason of its breeding, it is capable, and it is only when these potentialities are developed that their existence can be detected. - "This is surely the answer to those who criticise the high condition in which animals are shown, and it seems to me that in the case of animals destined for meat production it is a complete answer. There is no doubt that the new knowledge that has been forthcoming during the past 20 years or so has enabled us stock-breeders to feed our jjnimals with much more knowledge of their requirements and has enabled us all to effect very considerable economies, for which we should be duly grateful to the nutritional chemist,” Mr Mansfield concluded.