SHEEP BY RAIL

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20989, 18 October 1933, Page 14

SHEEP BY RAIL

INCREASED TRAFFIC EXPECTED It is anticipated that the reduction of 15 per cent, in the railway freight rates for livestock—the schedule which became effective in February last —will promote an increase in the numbers carried during the current financial year. For the year ended March 31 last, the total of sheep railed was 10,146,975, a slight drop from the tally of the previous year, but an improvement on the figures of the three preceding years. New Zealand has lower rates for sheep than tnose of the Australian States or South Africa. The difference m favour of New Zealand farmers begins with a penny a head on 50 miles (6d against 7d) and increases with the longer distances. South Africa's charges come second to New Zealand's. The Railway Department is ready for bigger business in the carriage of livestock. The number of waggons available for sheep has increased from 2418 in 1929 to 2935 this year.

LUCERNE MEAL EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND Some experimenting has taken place in England on the influence of the feeding o£ lucerne meal on butter-fat production. The methods of conducting the official experiment, which did not show any improvement in butterfat, have been criticised principally because, according to one writer, extremely poor yielding cows were selected for the experiment, and the amount of feed given only assisted to help the cows in their struggle for existence, instead of producing butterfat. In New Zealand we are led to believe that the capacity to produce fat is a physiological one, and can not be influenced by the nature of the feed, but, of course, more good feed means more milk, and more fat. A correspondent of the "Farmer and Stockbreeder" v/rites as follows: "My own cows have done, and are doing, splendidly on the lucerne meal, and it is a fact that when, in the early part of the year, the lucerne meal had to be discontinued owing to the foot-and-mouth ban on the stuff from South Africa, every cow went down steadily in butter-fat, to return to her usual high yield as soon as further supplies were forthcoming. The but-ter-fat question is of such importance to the milk producer that if butterfat can be enhanced under given conditions and with additional feeding of lucerne meal, etc., separately or all together, the sooner someone takes the matter in hand the better."