The farmer Scraps. (From the Live Stock Journal.)

Waikato Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 2009, 23 May 1885, Page 6 (Supplement)

The farmer Scraps. (From the Live Stock Journal.)

MILKING RECORDS. Thk herd of Sir Hussey Vivian, at Park-Ie-Breoi — of whioh (he private catalogue has just been isiued — presents as interesting an experiment as is anywhere being tried with Shorthorns. Members of certain tribes are here grouped as milking tribes, and a record of the milk yield between oalving and oalving u pat down at the foot of the page. Suoh an entry as "Tripaway gave 4,239 quarts between salf and calf in 1882," goes far to redeem any olorioal errors in setting up pedigrees. This kind of information is what is ■orely wanted, and the oattle, about whioh suoh statements can be truthfully made, are more wanted still, If, when a future edition appears, more such addenda are to be included, one would almost volunteer to oorreot the proof— strain on the eyesight and trials of the temper being set down as nothing in comparison with the duty of recognising every endeavor to awaken the sleeping reputation of the finest breed of miloh oattle in the world.

EXPERIMENTS WITH MILKING IIREKDB. Ik is muoh to be wished that similar experiments with milking breeds to that tried at Elsenham between Dutch and Jerseys eonld be oarried through with other varieties. Probably as to butter- making merit, no plan could be better than the adopting Jerseys as the one common itandard by whioh to try others in succession. The Elsenham trial proves that 15 pints of Jersey milk yields as muoh butter as 30 pints of Dutch milk. Several trials have shown that less than 20 pints of the milk of Red Polls will give lib. of butter. If two good Suffolks were to be tried against two good Jerseys, the return would be very interesting. Or if two Buoh Shorthorns as Sir H. Hussey Vivian's Tripaway and Cinderella — both of whioh have a record of aboye 1,000 gallons in a season — ware to be tried against two Jerseys. Suppose Tripaway's milk be as rich as that of Mr. Gooderham's Suflolka, what place would she and her companion in the Glenmorganshire Shorthorn herd be entitled to claim ?

nBIID Y. BBHD. The exoitement— reported in The Hereford Times as hiring occurred at Newport (Mon), where judges preferred the Shorthorns to the Herelords in a class for breeding animals — aptly illustrates the wholly untenable position which, by the fault of show-yard managers, judges are invited to fill. They are really aiked to determine the indefinable. It is impossible really to measure acourately the merits of breed against breed, except upon tome one clearly defined quality. You may fay each a horse is fleeter than that ; suoh a ona it able to drag more; suoh a one has higher action, etc. ; but you cannot say, between a Clydesdale and a thoroughbred, a Suffolk Punch and Norfolk cob, which is the better horse all round. Any one who attempts •ucb a decision (except to the limited ettent than this is a more complete specimen of its j type than that) beam the samo relation to an efficient judge that an owl does to Mr. Justice Hawkins. These are selected here to illustrate one's meaning rather than oattle, because it is wished to avoid even the appearance of partisanship, which was, no doubt, at the bottom of the disturbance at Newport. The real fault lay with those who drew out the programme. A MAMMOTH OX. A Hereford breeder has done us the favor to send a copy of an ancient handbill which announces that, at the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, was to be seen " for positively only one week longer," the stupendous American mammoth ox, "Brother Jonathan." It is ■tated in this ear-splitting dooument— as one reads it, the " Oyez, Oyez" and " Walk up" are painfully audible to fancy's ear — that Brother Jonathan was six years old in May, 1839, and had a live weight of 4 000 lbs. It is to be inferred that it was in 1839 that our fathers and grandfathers had the opportunity of seeing this animal, whose owner announced that he was under frightful penalties to H.M. Customs unless Brother Jonathan was re-shipped in a givon time. It would hardly be worth reprinting the particulars of this specimen of a class of monstrosity which our agricultural societies have now wisely abandoned, but for the faot that Brother Jonathan ia described as being of " a dappled bay " hue. Our Hereford oorreipondent suggests, from this description, that he was a half-bred Hereford. Why ? The " roselles," or " orow'a feet," upon a yellow-red skin, are to be found on Shorthorn coats as well as on Herefords. With what breed these pretty markings originated we do not know. But they are common to many red animals whether these be shorthorn, Hereford, Devon, or Bed Poll. In any one of these breeds might be found an animal of a yellow-red with deeper markings, which it is supposed, is the condition described as " a dappled bay."