PEDIGREE MILKERS.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 101, 22 January 1908, Page 2

PEDIGREE MILKERS.

THE HON. R. M'NAB'S 1 AIMS, j l ' • ' A TEMPTING OFFER THAT WAS . DECLINED. ' The Hon. R. M'Nab, in an interview accorded to a Gisborne "Timc's" -reporter-last Saturday, gave an' interesticg outline' of the history of his schemo for establishing' Gover- ' tnont herds of pedigree . milkers,: and told .some facts about gifts and offers-already received toward ( the' scheme., 1 "Following upon my speech at Palmer'stoh North": (he said) "in regard to the scheme I brought' forward on, the ! very important question of dairy herds, I ha,ve been.communicating'with a number of men interested in tho dairying industry in different parts of the country. 1 have an offer üb;a- of- £1000, and I hopo to get this supplemented. The difficulty,l which'was 1 raised byV; somej 'of-'those communickted with was concentrating atone point.' r A .man offered to'; give me £5000 to purchase a farm in the; Wellington, district, and '£1000 for the establishment of a milking herd of Shorthorns at that farm.. It involved, however,' the establishment of-a ' now farm within easy reach of the .one already in operation; and, after careful consideration, it was decided that, as it would involve an expenditure of £2500 per annum over receipts, we had to decline the offer. My Seal in this matter was appreciated by a lot of . leading mon. Mr. G. P. Donnelly, of Waimarama, Hawko's Bay, presented a num- . ber of pure-bred heifers, and they will bo sent to Ruakura, and others will be obtained from England." ; Tlis Levin Shorthorns. Mr. M'Nab had'something to say concerning the Shorthorn as a milking breed, andoi what was being done with the Shorthorn material at Levin. .' : , "What are you doing to. assist the,farmer to improve his dairy herd?" asked "the in-? terviower. ] _ ...■ "At the present time, chiefly in the South Island, and over a large portion of the North Island, the Shorthorn is the favourite milker to buyers. They can 1 get no guarantoe when purchasing Shorthorns thsjt they aro not getting baef.rather than milk, and they offer, within certain rcasonablo limits, almost anything to got bulls with a pedigree that give a fair chance of producing milk strains,_ rather than buy in the open market. ■ Ever siyce the schema was suggested, I have received, a .continual stream of letters on the matter, and I can say with confidence that a couplo of hundred boasts a year could bo disposed of without the'slightest difficulty, having a State guarantee. We have tried all methods to secure the best milking cows for the Loviu herd, and wo have found only one way to tost it, that is by buckot and scales. There is no other way—at least no other way has been successful with us. We hope that by doing this we will bo able to raise very materially within a few years the quantity of milk produced from the cows of the Dominion. The aim at Levin is to produco an average of 10,0001b. of milk per cow per season, and we already have a number of cows whose record is in excess of that quantity." t :