INTENSIVE DAIRYING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21239, 20 July 1932, Page 18

INTENSIVE DAIRYING.

SUCCESS WITH SMALL FARM.

During the last dairying season the farm of Mr. J. Bones, of Ohaupo, consisting of 84 acres, carried 90 head of stock, including 42 dairy cows, 15 rising two-year-old heifers, 22 rising yearling heifers and' a number of bulls and dry cows, writes the Waikato correspondent of the Weekly News. The herd averaged 3501b. butter-fat for the season, the best producer being the pedigree Jersey Cousin Grace, which, during the 1930-31 season, yielded 9351b. of fat in 365 days. In the season just ended the cow produced 7131b. fat in 339 days, and was given second place in the New Zealand Co-operative Herd-testing Association's list of 106,290 cows tested. In addition to grass the cow was given three double handfuls of bran and meal at each milking.

Mr. Bones farms his .property intensively. The 84 acres is subdivided into 24 paddocks, and rotational grazing i 8 carried on. Twenty-five acres were cut for ensilage and 10 acres for hay last summer, and these supplies are serving for supplementary fodder during the winter months. Mixed fertilisers aggregating 4cwt. to the acre and sulphate of ammonia, in the ratio of one ton to 10 acres, are applied to the pastures annually. Mr. Bones' herd topped the association' list two years ago with an average of 4441b. of butter-fat per acre. A year ago the average production of the herd was 4051b., 'While last season, owing to unfavourable conditions, it dropped to 3501b.