PEDIGREE COWS

Marlborough Express, Volume XLI, Issue 227, 25 September 1907, Page 6

PEDIGREE COWS

If a pedigree in a cow means anything at all, it should stand for superiority. The pedigree cow should bo stronger, healthier, have greater vitality and be a better performer than the scrub cow. If this is not so, why do we pay money for pedigree? Some people buy it without any thought as to what it should represent. The blood or inherited dairy tendency of the cow is like a costly factory filled with machinery for skilled hands, the capacity is there ; on the skilled handling depends the profit.

THE POOR COW

Only a rich man can afford to keep poor cows. A poor man cannot afford to waste his money on poor cows. Sometimes it is said that a poor man cannot afford to own good cows. This is wrong. If he can afford to own any he can afford to spend the money necessary to purchase a good cow, and finds enough to get hold of a secondrate one, must work double time to get any profit, and wait years before he can breed up to a higher standard. It is better to realise at the beginning that the poor man had better put all his money in half a dozen good cows than in a dozen or two inferior ones. The profits of dairying depends entirely upon the cows and the feeding.

SHEEP ON THE FARM

A good object lesson on what can be done by a combination of wheat- ! growing and sheep-production is re- j ported from Victoria. The farm . consists of only 320 acres, that culti- I vated being divided into three fields oi 100 acres each. Each field carries : a wheat crop one year, grass the next, and is fallowed the next. In 1905 the farm carried no fewer that 600 ewes and 550 lambs!. The fallowed! land carried a 50-acre crop of rape and i mustard, and the wheat crop averaged ; 22 bushels. After the crop was off ! the stubble was rolled and 501b of ; oats and vetches were mixed and har- j rowed in early, so that they came up I with the self-sown wheat with the' early autumn showers. This provided ; good grazing for the sheep right from ! the beginning. The lambs were fat- ! tened off the rape and sold at an all- ■ round average of 10s 9d each. The ' ewes gave a return from the wool of 6-i each. In 1906 the wheat Avas sown on the previous year's fallow, the cropped paddock utilised for grass, j and the field that had been lying out j in pasture for a year turned up to fal- j low, of which 50 acres were sown in j rape. From 600 eives 573 lambs were i obtained, two drafts of which (100 each) were .«okl fat off the rape as early as October 23 last at 13s 6d j each, while the clip from the ewes I reached 6s each. The crop averaged j 23 bushels for the whole 100 acres, j and this the owner attributed to the I clearing and fertilising effects of the \ sheep, together with the manurial i value of the rape. The rape seemed j to be an improvement on the bare fal- j low. The crop was manured with : 401b of superphosphate and 401b of , bonebusfc per acre. j