Untitled

Otago Witness, 14 December 1893, Page 6

FARM AND STATION.

CATTLE-BREEDING.

The enhanced values of "fats" and dairy cattle in the local markets for some time past are very pronounced evidences of the inevitable sequences which must follow the abandonment of cattle-breeding. This abandonment, commencing some five .years ago by the substitution of sheep for Cattle on stations and extensive lArmS) has had its immediate and progressive influences on the prices for beef of all but choice qualities, the which for some time past is seldom seen in market or stall. Ordinary cowkeepers have simply wished the cows to calve at times that suited individual circumstances, bo as to provide a flush of milk, the calf being relegated to a position among the slaughter of the innocents. To ensure pregnancy of a cow has for sometime been regarded as the one thing desirable, and so all mongrels have been bred and have been immediately sent to the block, for none of them are capable of profitable vealing, even were there a market for prime veal— which there unfortunately is not. So the "slaughter of the innocents" has proceeded, and fortunately so, because the owners of cows which were wanted to calve at certain times, have had regard only to requirements for milk, and no consideration for the quality of the progeny. The calves would not pay to rear on a dairy farm, where after some three to four years' keep steers might be worth from £5 to £6 per head in a scanty market, and as a consequence cattlebreeding for profit is one of the unacquired arts among cowkeepers. Again, the substitution of steep for cattle on stations and extensive farms was immoderate in extent and steady in operation ever since 1889, and so cattle-breediDg, once so popular, has trended from one extreme to the other with the inevitable results that to-day in this province there are neither "fats" nor dairy cattle, of moderate character, sufficient for local requirements. It must be borne in mind that with the relinquishment of cattle-breeding there was a simultaneous depletion of stocks, resulting from the extensive purchases of young cattle made successively and largely two, three, and four years ago on North Island account. The average quality of these was so indifferent that it was a blessing to be rid of them, but certainly only isolated efforts have been made to replace them with a better class. As a rule farmers rear calves only when cattle are dear, but avoid the rearing of calves when matured beasts are cheap ; but, on the contrary, the far-seeiDg ones rear good calves when cattle are cheap, and bide their time until the wants are felt. The fact is undeniable that the majority of farmers — squatters and extensive graziers relinquished the business absolutely — followed the role and gave up calfrearing, so that now there are not from year-and-a-half olds to three-year-olds to be had for love or money suitable for either fattening or dairying purposes. The very few — those who had really valuable, although not highly bred cattle — kept steadily at it, rearing the usual number of calves every season, and have profited accordingly. They had the foresight to see that the depletion of cattle stocks must lead to a demaLd for cattle, and unlike moles they perceived what was in the future " before scratching their way into it." The upshot is that two and three-year-old cattle have not been under offer for many months past, and quite immediately we have to depend on calfrearing in order to replace exhausted stocks.

The present want is in the sparsity of two and three-year-old cattle — that is to say, for beasts that are near to profit for the graziers' and dairyman's purposes. Unlike sheep, cattle cannot be matured as they are bred in the colony under from two and a-half to three years of age, so that the local demand for beeves and dairy cattle will probably be sustained for some time to come, for it is evident that cattle stocks have reached the extreme of depletion in this province. By the aid of past experiences, with the facts before us, it is imperatively necessary that farmers should regulate their efforts in breeding cattle to meet the wants of the future. In this process of depletion it is abundantly evident that, notwithstanding scratch writings, there are exceptionally few young cattle coming forward to take the place of the older ones — scrubbers as they were. We have deteriorated in quantity and most markedly in quality of beet cattle, as everyone knows who has to buy a roast or a steak, and there is the obvious lesson that the breeding of cattle in the future, to be successful, mu&t be entirely reformed. All the different breeds have their enthusiastic, but not disinterested advocates, who make a commerce — and a voiy profitable one, too, — of what will "take" for the time being in the various lines of stock. So it is that in the agricultural journals of the day " dahy breeds " and " beef breeds " are accepted distinctions and harped upou ad nanscvm ; while there is not a cowkeeper up to his business that does not patronise such, crosses

as their experience under their individual circumstances prove to be the most profitable. Giving all the consideration to prejudices ostensibly based on experience, the time has come that calf-rearing will pay if the youngster — especially if the makings of an eligible steer — will give a better return to the farmer than any other of his live stock. But a compromise mu^t be made by the farmer who seeks to make a profit from calf-rearing, whatever his prejudices may be. Ask a dairy farmer who, for example, patronises Ayrshires, and he will say, "If I rear steers no gfa2ier will buy them nor will he blly the heifers;" and so there is a considerable waste of material that should go to maintain 'cattle stocks. Scarcely an owner of from eight to 10 cows but has a bull on the farm that 'occasions more trouble than all the resb of the cattle, but the object is to have the cows brought duly pregnant without any consideration of the quality of the issue, which happily as a rule are knocked on the head while the breeder's purpose is fulfilled. The evil is becoming more and more apparent because of the shortage of cattle, and that in breeding from ordinary farm stock the use of mongrel bulls with the common run of cows depreciates, or rather renders worthless, the value of the progeny.