GROUP HERD TESTING

Ellesmere Guardian, Volume LI, Issue 66, 19 August 1930, Page 8

GROUP HERD TESTING

MR. C. M. HUME TO VISIT LEESTON.

- ADDRESS NEXT MONDAY

EVENING.

Advice has been received from Mr Arnaud McKellar, secretary to the Canterbury Herd- Testing Association, that Mr C. M. Hume, supervisor of the Dominion Group Herd Testing Federation, will give an address under the auspices of the Ellesmere A. and P. Association next Monday night, in the Association's Room, Leeston. Mr Hume is one of the best informed men in New Zealand on the subject of herd testing, having had opportunities of observing in all parts of the Dominion the benefits to be derived from systematic testing. To farmers in general and dairy farmers in particular his address should be exceptionally interesting and instructive. In the North Island group herd testing has made tremendous strides and it is the considered opinion of prominent men in the dairying industry that the increased production there.has been in a very large measure due to its adoption. Last season approximately 22 per cent, of the cows in the Dominion were tested. Canterbury's contribution is only 15 per cent., or three cows in every 2000. The only possible means of j distinguishing the payable members j of a herd from those cows which are merely "boarders" is by systematic testing. The subject is one of such outstanding importance that the A. and P. Association's room should be crowded on Monday night. Speaking in Gisborne the other day, Mr Hume claimed that even at low prices, there was a profit in dairying. At a recent Taranaki meeting Mr Hume went further, and said that even if a season's butter-fat disbursement averaged no more than 1/- a lb, some dairymen who had built up high enough herd producj tions to overcome high land costs and ! depleted produce values would be able to farm at a profit. He claimed, too, that the best business to-day was the properly conducted dairy farm, and that, if the bulk of the manufacturers of the Dominion had the same possibilities as" the dairy industry, they would face the future with greater confidence than they were now doing.