COW TESTING

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 7399, 29 March 1911, Page 2

COW TESTING

INDEPENDENT ASSOCIATION PROPOSED. The model Hord-testing Association established by tho Department of Agriculture at Dal eft eld (Carterton) and the excellent lessons it lias already furnished hav-=> awakened many dairy farmers in ether districts to tho necessity of adopting the one. means of ascertaining which are tho profitable and which the ■unprofitable cows in the herd —a regular record of milk, and fat production daring tho season. The department has several of these model associations, in order, it has been, •made clear, to .show tho farmer the way, not as a permanent assistance in tho matter. It is now for those communities which have realised the importance of the work to take it up independently, as milk producers in tho Efcetahuna district apparently intend to do. When farmers have such an excellent means for directing and controlling tho undertaking a? a co-operative dairv company it voeld assure success to tho scheme wore this agency prevailed upon to take charge of it. Then it would lie safe to pict'/re over/ dairy company in tho Dominicn having its herd-testing association and issuing tho annual statements (in which so many valuable comparative figures for individual and general instruction are contained) with the bal-ance-sheet of the butter and* cheese-mak--mg ooerations Under such a system tho dairy farmer would find tho annual statement of his company the most interesting document ho could handle; and it is easy to imagine such dairy factory balance-sheets being in demand in other districts and other States. The Department of Agriculture liao done excellent work in this connection. It is „to bo honed the load it has given to dairymen will bo. the initiation of a movement which will sweep through the country and bring about the revolution in milkproduction which it is capable of doing.