GROWING DAIRY FEED

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 12, 14 July 1931, Page 5

GROWING DAIRY FEED

(To the Editor.)

Sir,—l have read with interest in you* columns; numerous) suggestions for dealing with unemployment. Why not grow, feed for our cows. ■ Most of the land used fop dairying in New Zealand is second-clas« dairying land. There is very little: land capable of supplying a cow with sufficient milk-producing grasses for the whole season's milking. / .Dliry farmers on this second-class land only manage to keeptheir cows, in full profit from about' tha middle of October to the end of December, say/ eight weeks. It will not hurt a: cow; to milk her 42 weeks, and allow her tea weeks' spell each year. You can easily) get the gradual rise in milk supply front August to October, and decrease from Januajy to May at any factory. It ii not necessary to have, and you cannot have_, spring grasses all the year- round* but it is possible to feed a cow on conceu> trate'd food and make her milk' just as well as on the best spring grass. With butter-fat at Is fid per lb I have bought feed at the landed cost of £11-per ton* when I last, carried out my experiment* and could still show a profit in feedina it. The ruling price for the same feed to-day is about £7 per ton, and, butter-fat being worth only Is to-day, this should not make any difference. ■ . ■ ,

I have had a good deal of experience with this pumice land we hear so much about, and I have seen as much ag 50 and 70 bushels per acre grown on pumice land of. the corn I. require to carry out my; demonstration. If the growers of th'i* cow feed should come a 6 low as 2s pee; bushel for their corn it should-still be-ai profitable business. If this method oB feeding were adopted it would iucreasai the butter and cheese exported by a quarter, which would mean more freights, fop the railways. Every dairy farmer would want and could afford more' help, and there would be need for more thrashing machines, grinding machines, ahd'othei Equipment and workers.—l ami etc., . PRIMARY PRODUCER. ,