THE IDEAL MILKER.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 581, 2 July 1913, Page 2

THE IDEAL MILKER.

An Australian dairy authority wirites:—"The milch cow should have a very soft, mellow skin; and fine, silky hair. The head should be narrow and long with great width between the eye'?. The neck should be long and tbin, the shoulders thifl and litha. and narrow at the top. The back should be open, angular, and taper towards tbß tail. The hips should be wide apart, and covered with little meat.' Thia gives a fair description of the ideal milker as far as it goes, but other and even more important points require to be added too. A good heart girth fa essential as an indication of constitution, imperative in a milking cow; and good nostrils should accompany the above indication cf' lung capacity. Sign of feeding capacity have also been overlooked. The : esvy milking cow must necessarily have a big barrel, and a capacious rn:szle, for good feeding power goes hand in band with deep milking. LUCERNE.

ITS VALUE OR SHEEP AND HORSES.

There are those who believe that the New Zealand dairy far.-ner of the future will depend primarily for his cow feed on lucerne and ensilage, and when the certainty with which tlnbe can be relied upon is considered, there is solid reason behind their prediction: Ths experience of other countries, and iiis increasing demonstrations in New Zealand, point to the f.-rmer as being the mainstay of the dairy farmer, not only for cattle feeding, but for the economical production of baeon and pork. What is good for dairy cattle should ua equally valuable for other classes of farm stock. Hero again, foreign experience is in agreement with local experiments Lambs have been most successfully fattened on luccrna in New Zealand, and well cured lucerne hay easily the best dried forage known—is .considered the Cr.;.'- si:e-?p feed in America. The cu-rnonEtraticn of the value cf lucerne for slock feeding purposes, and hailsd lucerne hay as the favourite feed with breeders of pedigree sheep in the States, while sufficient evi-drir.-e is forthcoming &$ to th:j suita bilKy of lucerne for sheep feec-irg, much light requires to be thrown on thia sabjeot liefore the New Zealand ebtpp farmer can take up lucerne ivKh't.ny degree of confidence. The experiment stations could do good work in ibis connection, especially in regard to the :roost approved system of preserving it in the form of hay, a process which demands a knowledge of right procedure and considerable care, probably involving the use of the "caps," or small canvas coverings for the tops of the cocks in the field. This special treatment suggests increased cost > and labour, but%\"hr.n the added value of properly cured lucems bay is considered, it is probably fully worth it. The suitability of lucerne hay for horsa feed is undoubted. In many places, it is displacing grain in the ration of working horses, and though it is hardly likely to be contended that it is to oats, tf:e experience of those who have tried it, points to the fact that it is a good substitute, and has distinct advantages. In some of the wheat growing areas in New South Wales, it is almost exclusively u?ed for feeding the draught stock. According to information sup plied by the Dspartraent of Agriculture of that State, there are hundreds of horses doing ordinary farm work on nothing but lucerne hay, indeed, in New South Wales, there is a generation of horses that does not know the flavour of wheaten chaff or maize, and that scorns the sweetest wheaten hay. To ask a Tamworth farmer, says the report, if he believes in lucerne bay for working horses, is something like asking a shoemaker if he believes in leather. One wheat growing farmer who works forty horses, informed an officer of the Department that if one horse was fed on hard feed and another onlucerne hav, he know which would last the longer, and eventually give the most work. "All haulage from here to the siding five and a half miles away, is done by lucerne-fed | horses. They can go in and be back for dinner. Sulky horses sweat a bit more on it, but it does not seem to hurt them, and they make healthy horses. There's no sign of worms here, and wormy horses improve at once when brought in. We can fetch in poor horses and get them fit for market at a profit* in a few weeks. There seems some medicinal property in the lucerne." This farmer finds that for sheep lucerne is tricky, as it is likely to blow them. Several other farmers have given the New South Walea Department corroborative evidence. Here are a few of the opinions of it in condensed form:—"Lucerne feeding makes clean farming." "A poor horse will improve in condition if taken off maize and . put on lucerne." "I like lucerne because i ■ is the cheapest and the best." "Us 3 lucerne hay and supplementary feeding there need be none." In America, where, lucerne is regarded as the king of fodder crops, lucerne is used ' for a variety of parposes and is now being out np as a meat for human food, while it enters into the composition of a certain brand of tobacco much prized in the States, the fact of tobacco containing a certain percentage of lucerne is borne out by the print on the label in accordance with an American enactment.

One of the moat valuable services the, Agricultural Department of this country ha? rendered- the farmer has been its campaign to prove that lucerne, if properly managed, can be established in almost any part of the Dominion. It is gratifying to know that very many are benefiting by these demonstrations and that lucerne pronisei- to ha folly appreciated in the agrienltaral economy of too Pa-