The Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. TUESDAY, JUNE 5, 1906. THE ROBBER COW.

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XII, Issue 2376, 5 June 1906, Page 4

The Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. TUESDAY, JUNE 5, 1906. THE ROBBER COW.

Tlip II n nun I report <>l tin* South Island Dairy Assocint inn deals \\itli the necessity tor the dairy far mors ot -Now /inland wooding from tlioir herds all unprofitable cows a matter that has hern referred to from time to time in these columns. It is asserted that the dairy herds in this colony continue fo deteriorate, and to this is attrihute-d the fact that, in spite of the growth of the dairying industry, the export of hotter for the year ended .March last amounted to about eighteen thousand hundredueipjil less than in the previous twelve months. The <|ilcstion is of importance in fact, of far greater importance than many of the subjects discussed at the Fimucrs' t nion Conterrnce held here last Week. It has been shown that the annual value of the hotter export would he increased by a million sterling il the average annual amount of liutter tat per cow were raised I rom 1301 b, the present figure, to ‘2()()lb. as it could be. In other words, the dairy farmers of New Zealand are losing that sum every year because they will not take the trouble to find out the " robber " cows, as Mr Ixinsella, the Dairy Commissioner, terms them, in their herds. It is the old story ol prosperity dulling the keen edge of enterprise; the dairy farmers are doing so well that they will not he bothered with trying to do still better. So long as a cow gives milk no attempt is made, in the great majority of cases, to ascertain whether t hr iptaut ity and quality of its milk make it profitable, or whether it is not worth its teed. The Danes, as Mr Kiusclla rightly points out in his hook 11 Agriculture in Other Lauds," recently issued by the Agricultural Department, go to work in

a very different manner. They look at a cow purely from the point of view of its efficiency, and if it does not come up to the standard of production, out it goes. Their methods have been described on previous occasions, but they convey such a sound lesson that brief reference may again be made to them. There are in the first place over 300 dairy-control societies in Denmark, the members of which own altogether some 300,000 cows. Qualified men, says Mr Kinsclla, are engaged by these societies (which receive a small Government subsidy) to spend a couple of days at intervals on each member’s farm in order to test the quantity and quality of the milk, and to calculate the cost of it as produced by each cow. On a smaller scale co-operative testing assic-iations, which were started some ten years ago, and now number several hundreds, do the same work. The fact that between 1895 and 1901 the value of the butter exported from Denmark rose from three millions to six millions is attributed to the weeding out of unprofitable cows which followed the work of the testing associations, while the dairy farmers benefited not only by the increased production of the herds, but by the large reduction in the cost of feed per head which resulted from their acquiring a knowledge of scientific methods of feeding. Five years after the associations were started, the cost of producing a pound of butter had been diminished by more than one-third. As against the expense of having the cows tested, which is from Is 8d to 2s Od per head annually, must be put the increased return per cow, which varies from twenty-five shillings to •£3 a year. “It would seem,” remarks .Mr Kinsella. "that methods which have proved of such great benefit in Denmark should not remain untried much longer in this country. ’ A\ hen it is remembered that the 44 robber cow costs just as much to leed as the profitable one, if not more, the persistency with which the average New Zealand dairy farmer neglects to test his herd does little credit to his judgment and enterprise. It is this consideration that has caused us to heartily welcome the formation of the Hall a nee milk-te-ting class, and to hope that it will continue to exist, as it cannot tail to be tfie means of promoting the dairying industry in that district. We hear that several farmers in that locality have decided to have their herds tested and to discard those anifcials coming w ithin the category of Dairy Commissioner Kinsella s "robbers 4 of the dairy far- , mers. If similar classes were established in other parts of the colony and we note that the Hallance experiment has been referred to in several newspapers throughout New Zealand •—great benefit would accrue to those directly concerned in the welfare of the dairying industry.