JUDGES AND THE SCALES.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 21 October 1922, Page 4

JUDGES AND THE SCALES.

Many of the best judges admit their inability to tell the best cows by appearance, and their decisions have time and again been reversed by the results of weighing and testing. There is an instance where the Government testing officials in New Zealand asked several practical dairymen to pick out those they thought were the best cows. The herds were then passed through a season's test, and not one of the first choice animals finished as the greatest producer. Several of them came sixth, seventh, tenth, and even at the bottom of the list when the official figures were reported. Therefore, one is unable to test the money-producing value of a cow by sight. With the great majority of cows ranging from, ordinary in appearance to the champion, no one j living can estimate in advance what I degree of butter capacity they possess. Many a fine-looking cow gives a great flow of milk for a few months and makes a great start, thereby leading her owner to think that she is a great milk producer, but the steady cow goes quietly on her way for nine months or more, and brings in more money than the other. The latter cow can only have the credit when the . milk is weighed and tested right through her milking.'time. It is the yield and nothing, but the yield, which must be looked to as the measure of success with dairy stock breeding. The old instruction of the past and "the marks of a good dairy cow are plain to all who are acquainted with them—wide between the eyes, wide behind, etc.," should be revised, to read "The sign of a good cow is her yield." But remember, good cows require good feed to do "good work. '