HIGH-BRED PIGS.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 261, 4 November 1929, Page 8

HIGH-BRED PIGS.

IMPORTED FROM CANADA. MR. C. W. ANDERSON* RETURNS PAYS HIGHEST PRICE FOR SOW. Among the passengers on the Aorangi from Vancouver yesterday was Mr. Colin W. Anderson, a breeder of Yorkshire swine, who has been on a twelve months' tour of the world. While in Eastern Canada, Mr. Anderson purchased three Yorkshire sows from J. Brethour and Nephew, at Burford, Ontario, paying for one the highest price ever paid for a sow in Canada. One is a daughter of Rosedale Masterpiece, grand champion boar at the Canadian National Exhibition and Royal Winter Fair for three years in succession. The dam of this sow is Oaklodge Princess, also grand champion at the Canadian National Exhibition in 1927, 1928 and 1929, and at the Royal Winter Fair for the first two years. She has won 31 first prizes and has never been defeated in the show ring. The other two sows purchased by Mr. Anderson are out of leading prizewinners, the dam of one being grand reserve champion at the Canadian National Exhibition and Toronto Royal Show for two years. These animals will go to join a stud which already contains four sows and one boar, purchased by Mr. Anderson in Canada two years ago through the Dominion Experimental Farms branch. While these brood sows have never been exhibited in New Zealand, several of their progeny have been shown and have never Suffered defeat, thus showing the high quality of stock selected by the Canadian officials. Mr. Anderson is also an enthusiastic breeder of milking Shorthorns, and owing to the embargo on English cattle through the outbreaks of foot and mouth disease, hoped to purchase a bull in Canada in order to secure new blood. He found, however, that most of the Shorthorns of milking type in Canada were of a dual purpose nature and milking qualities were not intensified to the same extent as in New Zealand. Among Mr. Anderson's herd is a seven-year-old cow which gave 8511b of butterfat under Government test under ordinary farm conditions. Among the bulls he saw in Canada, Mr. Anderson did not find one he considered good enough to purchase.

. Mr. Anderson expressed himself as being highly pleased with the organisation of the Dominion Experimental Farms branch in Canada, and also with the attention and courtesy shown him by the various members of the department with whom he came into contact. His entire tour through Canada was mapped out by Mr. H. S. Arkell, Dominion live stock commissioner, and the visitor was loud in his praise of the various officers in their efforts to make his tour interesting and instructive.