SCRUB COWS.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 306, 19 September 1908, Page 3

SCRUB COWS.

FOODS THAT FLAVOUR HER BUTTER. (To THE EDITOB.) Sir, —Since penning my last letter, I have not noticed any furthor reflection upon the useful scrub cow. The scrub, I claim, is the cow that produces nine-tenths of the butter made in tho Dominion. If the product of all tho pedigreo animals was omitted from the total amount. of butter produced in the Dominion, few people would" detect the deficiency. I have previously stated that the scrub cow suffers injustice in othor directions, and I hopo in this letter to ventilato one phase of this subjcct.. ' It ■is recognised that tho production of milk is tho chief duty of the cow, but that it should be good, sweet,-and rich milk depends largely upon the treatment she recoivos. I say "largely" because somo cows, for some reason or other, cannot produce good milk, and should at once bo weeded out, but there are other factors which cause deterioration of her milk. Regarding the cow as a milk-producing machine, we find that the milk is produced from what she eate, and we know that certain foods' will give "the milk certain ' taints, some so strong as to render the milk totally unfit for consumption, and othors to a lessor degree; while on the other hand,' somo foods will enable the cow .to produce richly flavoured milk. In the first list aro turnips, watercress, and willow. And in a lesser degreo even' green oats, although so much used, should have a corrective plant sown with them to counteract the slightly bitter tasto created by their use. Can' anyono expect delicious . butter from docks, rushes, buttercups, and daisies, and in somo pastures these compriso 50 per cent, of the cow's food. Wo have ample demonstration of my contention in the grading shed, and,at the various winter shows. • In most cases tho process of manufacture is awarded tho maximum points. Any variation that occurs in excellence is chiefly duo to the flavour, and the flavour is the result of tho provender fed to the cow. I have as yet. never read nor heard what grasses, or combination of grasses, will onablo a herd of cows to produce tho finest flavoured butter.'We havo a largo number of grasses, but what is their special valuo as tested by the flavour of their product in butter? Nobody has'told us. The usual method of sowing pasturo is to sow a general mixture. This method certainly will return butter of fair quality, but what grasses will produce butter of tho finest flavour? This is what others, as well as myself, want to know. When the agitation was proceeding as to where the dairy school shoud bo, I was hoping that perhaps it might take the form of what I am going to advocate. A small factory should be erected at the experimental farm, and upon the 800 acres of as fine land for the purpose as there is in the Dominion certain portions should be sown in certain grasses, and experiments carried out to demonstrate to a certainty- what grasses should be cultivated, and in what proportion, to produce milk and butter of tho finest flavour and quality. If this were done I'believe butters of choicest blend—because produced from ' a selected combination ■ of grasses—would bo placed • ujwn the market, and would bring prices far in excess of tbo common, article. I only ask on behalf of tho scrub cow that, these experiments in breeding and feeding be carried out 'by competent and intelligent men upon the Weraroa Experimental Farm, and I; believe tho results wouid justify tho experiment. I know as' well as any tho blunders and follies perpetrated on that farm, but over - these I would rather cast a mnntlo of forgetfulness and hope that in the future it will enter upon a career of usefulness, and fulfil the brightest,hopes of its well-wishers. There- are minor questions to bo solved, but I think that if no attention is paid to tho larger issues nothing .will be gained by going further into tho subjcct at tho present time. I am, etc., : J. protjse;