BUTTER YIELD: THE RESULTS OF CAREFUL SELECTION.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 2521, 6 September 1888, Page 3

BUTTER YIELD: THE RESULTS OF CAREFUL SELECTION.

As there is every prospect of a large dairy industry springing up in Waikato, the experience of a dairyman in one of the eastern states of America, may be of value. Before a convention of buttermakers he said that he had been dairying with 40 cows for 20 years aud his cows had averaged luOlbs of butter per year, and with that he was satisfied. His returns were about £7 10s per cow. One day ho read in the New York Tribune the experience of a man who tested his cows separately, and was greatly surprise! at the difference he discovered in tliß amount of butter produce derived. He was so much impressed with the figures given that lie resolved to take the trouble to test his own herd. Accordingly he arranged to keep the milk of each cow separate, churn the produce of cacli by itself, until he could determine the exact results and sec whether it would be best to aggregate the cows and confine himself in future to the offspring of the best. The result of his experiment was astonishing from the first. He found the milk product of this herd varied all the way from lSlbs. to 481bs per cow. But this was not all. Some of tho lightest milkers produced the most butter. He then commenced raising only the heifers of the best butter producers for his own use, selling off all the others, and in a short time he found he had increased the average yield of his herd from 1501bs to 2661bs a year per cow, an increase of 1161bs per cow per year, or a money produce of £12s 10s, instead of £7 10s, and the improved herd ate no more and took no more care than the old one. An expert can almost unerringly pick out the best cows for butter by their marks and appearance, but the surer way is to test their produce, and insist on the Darwinian law, the survival of the fittest