HERD-TESTING

Northern Advocate, 22 August 1929, Page 10

HERD-TESTING

MARLBOROUGH. RETURNS! 1 (By L. T, Bear, tester to Marlborough Association.) The .1028-29 milking season' being over, and all the figures being made up and published, it will no doubt ibo interesting to your readers to know how our herds compared with those in other places, A total of 231(5 cows were put under tost.. The live highest herds of over In cows each averaged as follows: —

One of .13 cows, average yield of fat 3841 b-, fat in. 262 days; ,2S cows, 3641 b. fat in 230 days; 19 cows, 3361 b in 264 days; 25 cows, 3311 b. in 234 days;,42 (ows, 3141 b. ,in 274 days. Besides those quoted, there wore small herds of less than 15 hows' whose average figures were a little higher than most of the above.

# The herd rating lowest was one of 38 cows, whose average yield was 1611 b. fat" in 266 flays.-‘ Four hundred and sixty-four cows yielded over 3001 b fat per hdad, that is, 20 per cent, of those tested.

The average for all the tested cows was over lift fat per day for the sea-

The highest cow yielded 5431 b fat in 283 days, and its runner-up gave 5371 bin 285 days, both on ordinary pasture food.

The average yield was 2441 b. for all the eows tested, this .'being -., about 201 b per head higher.than the average for the Dominion tested cows of the previous season. In the-January number of the ‘ ‘ Exporter ’ J it was stated that the herds of Marlborough were below the average of the Dominion eows in yield of fat, but the above figures will show that that was a mistake.

It must ,be remembered that- Marlborough has never seriously gone in for dairying, and the above yields are from -cows that have not, in the main, had much thought bestowed on their .selection. The past season was the first under an organised herd-testing association.

In the past the farmers have devoted most of their time-to the growing of crops, and breeding sheep, and dairy eow.s have boon a side-line, but every year dairying is coming more into favour, and testing is being looked upon as a necessary accompaniment to that, line of business. For high carrying capacity, coupled with intensive cultivation, there are few parts of New* Zealand that can equal this locality, a groat variety of fodder crops can be so easily grown that supplementary feeding all the year round will be profitably carried out on small areas when Marlborough takes its place as one of the dairying centres of Now, Zealand. Tt is the home of lucerne, j which grows readily, net‘only on the rich flats, but also on the rolling country served by tire railway line between Blenheim and the present. I southern terminus. !