DAIRY SHORTHORNS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3342, 3 April 1918, Page 9

DAIRY SHORTHORNS.

One of the latest breeders to take up th« dairy Shorthorn in England is Mr HildoI brand Harmsworth, owner of the Fresh- ; water herd, at Shipley, in Sussex. He wa» ; first tempted to enter the Shorthorn lists aq 1 a "beef" man (says the Live Stock ; Journal), but, having attended the dispersaj | sale of the late Lord Rothschild's dairyShorthorns, he saw in the type something, appealing to the eye and to his instincts* as a business man. The war came along, : and he then realised still more that milk was an essential food commodity, while all the evidence now points to still more milk being needed the world over as the outcome of conditions that have been brought abou'fc by the European conflict. Mr Harmswor'fctt is out for the big-framed, robust cow, carrying a carcase of natural flesh, which can be turned to butchering when her days of milk-giving are over. "I do not care whai family they belong to," he eaid recently, "as long as' they come up to requirements in the test by performances. Neither am I a stickler aa to colour, so long as they givemilk I" He firmly believes that the besi dairy Shorthorns will emerge from Cumberland and Westmorland, and hopes that when those cattle are 'firmly established in southern countries their ofi spring will retain their parents' robust, characters. This can be almost guaranteed so Jong as tho right bulla are used. Some southern breeders have lost size in their cattle because the wrong bulls have been put to North Country dairy cows. This has lea to deterioration of type at the expense of turning them into second-rate milking machines. .Mr Harmsworth is sufficiently - wideawake not to fall into that error. He is not one of those "dairymen" who must have "a bit of Bates" in all his cattle. Too little attention, he holds, has been paid in the past to the part" that the bull plays in the " carry on" of successful cattle-breeding. Speaking in regard to tho outlook of the dairy Shorthorn, Mr Harmsworth believes that there is much real work still to be' done both by the Shorthorn Society (Coatee's Herd Book) and theDairy Shorthorn Association in letting the world know. what the breed can accomplish. Propaganda work was a vital noeessfty. There must be more uniform records," and no cow should be admitted to the association's book of records unless sho gave 700 gallons at a lactation. Ho refused to keep any cow in his herd which did not yield 700 gallons. Unless the Dairy Shorthorn Association, he said in an interview in the Live Stock Journal, conscientiously considered the true position of their breed, and realised that' there was an opponent springing up as a' threatening menace to them, breeders of the milking Shorthorn stood in a very" serious ■ danger of being "spoofed" by the Hols'tein.Friesian people. The lovers of the black-and-white breed were knocking at the Shorthorn door, and if the Holstein people played then- cards the right way they would, in .time, get a dual-purpose <-»W equal to the Shorthorn. The Friesiaa people had got out a book of milk records. They studied the value of publicity, and knew the value of propaganda work ; they knew just when and how beet to sell their wares and they were engineered aa breeders, by a very clever council. If tho Holstein people could _ prove that their breed produced more milk than the Shorthorn, and a butter-fat of equal percentage, then the dairy Shorthorn would have to so, " In 20 years time tho dairy Shorthorn wili bo No. 2 in the race if tho future of the breed is not left to men who realiso what they are up against—i.e., an opposing breed splendidly managed and in very expert hands "

Mr Harms-worth had something to say to the breeders of dairy Shorthorns, whose half-hearted enthusiasm struck hint.' They went to sales and they met elsewhere, but thoy never talked "milk." From anyone who was "anyone" in the breed, to whom he had mentioned the matter of the want of still more businesslike methods in conducting the association and keeping milk records, he received the same reply, "Oh, ah, yes, perhaps so; but yon see I don't make my cattle into mere milking machines, so I don't worry about it!" No wonder Mr Harmsworth asks: _" Why on earth, then, are such men in the cattle-breeding Industry at all 7 Is it merely because they consider it good form or because they have some family traditions to carry out?" The dilatoriness of the councils supposed to be conducting the affairs of the respective Shorthorn Associations was appalling. Business men, men with the commercial instinct, should be chosen to seats on those councils, if men of that stamp ever pot nominations for such high places. The fetish of "pedigree" lay behind much that wao clogging the wheels of progress. "If the dairy Shorthorn was given every opportunity to expand and develop on riphl lines, there was nothing to prevent the breed from ousting the Holstein-Friesian from the race for milk supremacy. With an enlightened policy followed from now until the end of 'the. war, and one that would prepare the buyers who are bound to come along at the conclusion of peace with knowledge as to what the breed wat and what it could do at the pail, then ths daily Shorthorn would be given a fair ohance. There must come a tremondoua

•boom in cattle after tho. war, and the cry would be just a 3 great for milch cattle aa it would be for beef," reiterated Mr Harmsworth. " Dairy Shorthorns will sell for £2OOO in the next 10 years, when people realise their merits," he added. Although Mr Harmsworth disclaims the idea of making a fetish of pedigree, yet he is evidently a believer in pedigree of the right kind, as are tho best American breeders of dairy cattle, and that is a pedigree of performance. He has bought some very fine cows, which are giving up to 12,0001 b of milk, and to mate with these in the future he hag purchased a 10-month-old bull calf for 750 gs from the famous herd of Messrs It. W. Hobbs and Sons. On both the sire and dam's side this young bull comes from ancestry with notable milking records.