PRODUCTION OF MILK

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27472, 5 October 1954, Page 11

PRODUCTION OF MILK

British Professor’s Theory (A.Z. Press Association —Copyright) (Rec. 6 p.m.) LONDON, October 4. More than 600 farmers at an Aberdeen meeting heard Professor Robert Boutflour, head of the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester, and one of the most controversial figures in British livestock breeding, discuss his own revolutionary theories on milk production, says the “Scotsman/ * “When I started my herd I bought cheap cows at £6O to £7O each, and a cheap bull at £2O as a calf, and neglected all the usual things,” said Professor Boutflour. “I forgot about pedigree and type and now I have got my herd up to the highest average yield in the country. I believe nothing has done more harm to animal husbandry than the showyard, the cattle judge associated with it, and the pedigree breeder. “Points in a show score card which we are still teaching young farmers today can be traced back to something written in 1000 B.C. “It is no use depending either on average figures of milk production. Averages are the most dangerous things in the world. You don’t want to know the average. You want to know which is the worst yield. What you get told in the pedigree world is always the best. w * “If you are engaging a secretary, you don’t want to know if he is on the average honest, you want to know if he is dishonest once. What you get by looking at pedigrees tells you nothing. You are just picking selected animals from selections within the pedigree,” he says.