TO START A DAIRY HERD.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 468, 29 March 1909, Page 2

TO START A DAIRY HERD.

The steady maintenance of good prices for butter and cheese for some years past, due, perhaps, entirely to the fact that the population of tho world is growing faster than the product of tho dairy herds, is having the effect of persuading numerous farmers to tako up dairy-farming as a branch of tlioir work. To those tho question of tho hesfc ivny to collect a dairy herd of high quality—say, pure-bred Jerseys—is a question they may find it difficult to settle particularly if capital is very limited. To buy good dairy cows might bo too expensive. Good dairy coivs are rarely sold at any price. To buy young calves of good pedigree is more easy, but too slow for most. To buy bad cows is to entangle oneself from the very beginning. Tho best advice that occurs to ono at tho present moment, and undor tho conditions that exist, is to buy as many old dairy cows of good records (though of mixed breeding) as ono can get, mid from those to start to build up a herd of grades. If tho intontion bo to possess eventually a herd of puro Jerseys, a few oows of that breed would also be required to work out that end. All authorities agree that the least economy of all should ho shown in tho purchaso of tho bull. Ho should be old enough to havo offspring whoso dairying performances can bo investigated, and ho should, of course, pass tho tuberculin test. From this basis a firstclass herd ought ultimately to cmergo. To expect, however, to bo ablo to buy up sufficient good dairy cotvs, especially of Jersey blood, in theso days of a Jersey boon, is- to, court disappointment. Thoro is a vast opening for the raising of good dairy cows. Only about half the calves born aro females, and a very small percentage of those reach maturity. Tho demand for good performers is very keen, and it seems likely to become keener for somo years to come. Tho obvious lesson, therefore, for fanners who possess sonio good milk givers is to go in for raising all tho progeny that can bo got from these, and to uso only the best obtainable bulls as .the sires,