“SCRUB” BULLS

Gisborne Times, Volume LXVII, Issue 10475, 4 January 1928, Page 2

“SCRUB” BULLS

PROPOSED REGISTRATION

LEVIES TO BE POOLED FOR SUBSIDIES FOR PUREBREDS.

(Special to the Times.) WELiLiINGTCiN, Jan. 2. Shortly the New Zealand Farmers' Union and the Royal Show Associa-tion-intends to make further overtures to the Government in an endeavour to obtain legislation to deal with the improvement of the Dominion’s dairy herds. The two bodies desire registration of the “scrub” bulls in the country on the lilies of the South Australian Dairy Cattle Improvement Act, which is designed to help farmers to keep out pure-bred bulls and which provides for a levy of 10s per bull to be paid each year as a registration fee, the money to be pooled and form the basis of a fund. from which the Government suhs&irmi purchases oil pure-brecl bulls. in South Australia the amount of the subsidy granted to purchasers is 60 per cent of the purchase price and the limit is £3O. Bulls purchased must not be less than 10 months old, and not more than 5 years old, must have passed a tuberculin test !jc the Government officer within the six months preceding the sale, must be the progeny of a dam which, under official test, has reached the 3501b5. butter-fat standard in any lactation period and has -attained the standard set for the lactation period, and must be kept in conditions satisfactory to the Department of Agriculture. •

On the basis of 5-3,000 bulls of two years and over in the Dominion it is estimated that there are, in all, 65,000 bulls of six months and over in New Zealand. Legislation based on the South Australian Act, it is estimated by. the N.Z. Farmers’ Union, would provide a sum of £32,500, or after deducting administration expenses, £30,000 annually ■ for the subsidising of purchases of pure-bred bulls. Assuming that the average price of bulls bought would be 36 guineas, as was the case with the six highest priced Friesians sold at a y recent Wjeraroa sale, the subsidy would provide for the purchase every year of 1,400 pure-bred bulls in place of the present “scrubs” and would in 10 years make a vast dilference to the Dominion’s dairy herds. The scheme is designed to apply to beef bulls as well as dairy bulls, since the use of pure Aberdeen Angus, Herefords or Shorthorn bulls would produce a better quality heel, maturing at an earlier age. Victoria is the latest Australian state to follow the lead of South Australia and move for the introduction of such legislation, the Chamber of Agriculture having formulated a sirndar scheme.