Live Stock and The Farm.

Southland Times, Issue 19823, 20 March 1926, Page 14

Live Stock and The Farm.

PRODUCTION LIMITATION. * BUTTER AND CHEESE.

NEW ZEALAND BI TTER APPRECIATION IN ENGLAND. BLENDING BY RETAILERS. Mr W. H. Haddrell, of Westown, New Plymouth, has received a letter from a friend resident in Barnstaple, North. Devon, containing some very appreciative remarks on the quality of the butter sent as a Christmas gift through the Dairy Produce Control Board and comments on the practices of retailers in blending inferior grades with New Zealand butter.

When opened, the butter was found to be in excellent condition and had apparently been carefully packed, the letter states. The cost of the butter and consignment charges amounted to 2s 6d lb., or 10b for the 41b. package, the samte as the price ruling for celebrated Devonshire butter which is brought to market twice weekly by the English farmers. The English butter suffers severely by comparison with that from New Zealand, and does not approach the latter for quality. It is rather significant, the writer adds, that butter supposed to be New Zealand is priced at Is 8d lb. at Barnstaple, while New Zealand butter is retailed at 2s 6d at Bath, some miles distant. There is a marked difference in the quality o fthe two butters and that sold at 2s 6d is far superior to that sold at Is Bd, though both are supposed to be colonial dairy produce. It is evident, the writer remarks, that the vendors are blending the higher quality with inferior grades and selling the product as colonial butter, with a consequent detrimental effect on the market for New Zealand produce. Unless the New Zealand producers take proper steps to see that their butter is put on the market in its original condition, they cannot hope to exercise control over unscrupulous retailers, and the only remedy appears t-o be the elimination of bulk distribution and the substitution of labelled lib. packages. ENSILAGE CONSTRUCTION OF PIT SILO Every livestock owner must carefully consider the question of providing silage for winter feed. To this end, the following hints as to the construction of the ordinary trench, or pit solo may be found useful:— Select a site where the soil is impervious, if possible on a slope so that the direction of the length of the trench runs down the slope. Avoid hollows into which water might drain. Have the site near the feeding place. The trench is 60 feet long and 12 feet wide at the bottom, 15 feet wide at the top, and 12 feet deep. There is an outslope at each end, and, including these, the surface dimensions will be 156 feet by 15 feet. Mark out on the site the surface dimensions given; plough and remove the soil with scoops; trim the walls smooth. The whole cost of this operation should be from 6d to 1/- per cubic yard at most. No roof is required. A trench silo, completed according to the above dimensions, will hold 315 tons of silage when full, and for every foot it is made longer its capacity is increased by 2 4-5 tons. Cut the crops and load on to a wagon, drive it into the trench, unload, and leave by the opposite slope. Drive over the dumped material, for this helps to compress it. .'ramp in by leading animals up and down, particularly at the sides, while the trench is being filled. Fill from the bottom up, not from one end to the other. If the material is somewhat dry, add water while filling, at the rate of twenty to forty gallons per ton. This will prevent mouldiness or rotting.

Fill the silo well to above the surface (about 2 feet), with a down slope from the middle to the sides. Cover the whole first with grass, straw or weeds; then with a layer of earth 9 inches or a foot thick. The layer of grass, etc., prevents the silage coming in contact with the covering soil. Tlie best crop is the one that suits local conditions best. All the following crops make good silage for cattle: Maize, millets, grass, barley, wheat oats, and rye. Open up the trench at one end by first removing the earth and then the straw. Cut the silage vertically either with a sharp spade or with a hay-knife; this will loosen the stuff and make its removal easy. The silage should be fit to feed to stock about a month after filling. Heated silage may be fed to stock with little or no dancer, provided it is allowed to cool first. Silage deteriorates very little in a well-made and well-closed trench, and will keep for several years. The daily ration for a cow is from 25 to 401 b, depending on the size of the animal. The ration for a sheep is from 2 to 41b per day. SUPPLEMENTING FODDER The cow is simply an organic engine for manufacturing milk, and, like the steam engine, she must be supplied in the first place with fuel or fodder to create energy sufficient to move her own body from place to place. This fuel or fodder is called a maintenance ration; but if we would have the cow become a profitable producer of milk she must be supplied with a great deal more fodder or fuel than is included in the maintenance ration, otherwise she would remain just as unprofitable as the engine that has only sufficient fuel fed to it to move its own machinery. Such an engine would be a dead loss to its owner. If a herd is composed of cows all possessing hereditary milking qualities, it may be fed very liberally above the maintenance ration without fear that the individual members will waste part of the food by putting on superfluous flesh. A cow should be fed all she will respond to in milk production, and only when she begins to put on superfluous flesh, and yield a much reduced quantify of milk should the surplus food be decreased, particularly anything in the form of meals or oil-cakes. HEBD-TESTING RESULTS THE MORRINSVILLE GROUPS. The butter-fat averages for the Morrinsville and Mat am at a groups of the Herdtesting Association for the past month are as follows, the numbers of the cows in the herds quoted being given in parentheses:— Morrins ville.—Highest herd average 36.171 b (28), lowest 22.041 b (100), best cow 56.441 b, worst 6.841 b. Kiwitahi.—Highest herd average 36.291 b, (44), lowest 12.961 b (40), best cow 58.291 b, worst 5.521 b. Tahuna. — Highest herd average 36.731 b (75), lowest 23.341 b (64), best cow 77.941 b, worst 7.11 b. Tauhei. —Highest herd average 35.591 b, (26), worst 20.331 b (60), best cow 53.821 b, worst 7.411 b. Waitoa.—Highest herd average 40.29 (54); lowest 21.69ib (51), best cow 75.031 b, worst 7.261 b. Hinuera. —Highest herd average 37.041 b (37), lowest 21.441 b (25), best cow 73.711 b, worst 4.051 b. Waharoa. —Highest herd average 34.871 b (52), lowest 19.251 b, best cow 67.541 b. worst 3.201 b

SECRETS OF THE SOIL IMPORTANCE OF RESEARCH. UTILISING THE BACTERIA. USEFUL EXPERIMENTS. Sir E. J. Russell, F.R.S. says: “During the past twenty-five years much has been learnt about the soil, and there have been improvements in practice, but they have been of more importance to farmers abroad, especially to the “dry farmers,” or to men working under irrigation or alkali conditions than to farmers at home. The things that have been discovered have not yet found much practical application in this country (England), although beginnings have been made which may grow to be of great value in the future. They have already proved useful to experts, and have given a degree of certainty to modern agricultural advice which saves the farmer much disappointment and financial loss. Perhaps the most remarkable soil discoveries of the last twenty-five years have been connected with the minute creatures living in the soil. It was known forty years ago that these living things were makers of plant food in the soil, and that plant growth depended on their activities, but little was known with certainty about the way they lived or how they could be made to do more work. Farmers were advised to encourage their activity, but no certain way of doing it was known. SOIL INOCULATION. The first serious attempts to utilise the soil bacteria were the inoculations of clover and other leguminous plants. All these crops bear nodules on their roots, which, when cut open and examined under a microscope, are found to be full of bacteria. Experiments showed that the bacteria are fed by the plant, and in return they fix some of the gaseous nitrogen from the air and convert. it into nitrogenous food of great value to the plant. Some brilliant person conceived the, idea that he would greatly increase the growth of leguminous crops if he obtained cultures of the organisms and spread them about in the soil or on the seed. Many trials were made with clover, peas, beans, etc, but the increased crops and increased wealth, were like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, and farmers in this country remained sceptical about the whole process. On the Continent, however, and especially in Scandinavia, better results were obtained. The experimenters there had worked with lucerne and obtained more vigorous seedlings and considerable increases in crop, not, indeed, every fine, but so often that it was worth the farmer’s while to inoculate on the chance that he would benefit. Lucerne had not been much studied by the English investigators, although the crop is well known in this Country, and, indeed, in days gone by, Continental agriculturists had come here to learn about it. The method of inoculating lucerne was first worked out in Denmark and Sweden, and it proved so successful that nowadays farmers in these countries regularly adopt it as part of their ordinary cultivation. There are, of course, failures from various causes, but many successes are obtained, and the value of a good stand of lucerne is so great that all possible ways of ensuring it are worth adopting. AN IMPROVED PROCESS. In the last few years considerable improvements in the process have been introduced by Mr H. G. Thornton, of the Rothamstead Laboratory. He showed how to keep the organisms vigorous during their journey from the laboratory to the farm, and also how to ensure that they would easily move about in the soil and so infect that lucerne root. The farmer’s part of the process is simple and very easily carried out on any ordinary farm. The Royal Agricultural Society has shown a keen interest in the work, and provides funds by means of which extension trials are carried out in various parts of the country to discover how far lucerne is improved by inoculation, and whether the improved crop is of sufficient value to the farmer to justify him in growing it. The work is still in progress, but already inoculation has proved of value in new districts where lucerne had not previously been grown; the plants from untreated seed come up looking yellow and sickly, while those from inoculated seed are green, healthy, and vigorous. There remain many practical problems to be solved. Weeds are perhaps the greatest difficulty in lucerne growing in the Midlands and southern parts of England, and methods have still to be devised for keeping them down. The dying of the plants in winter causes much trouble in the north, but this will be met by introducing hardier varieties such as the Grimm and other sorts.

DANISH BUTTER SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH WORK Excellent work has been accomplished by the Government Experiment Laboratory in Denmark, which, has been an important factor in developing the high standard of Danish butter. That this bureau is continuing its efforts to uphold and to further improve’the quality of Danish butter in order that it may maintain its place in foreign markets, is evident from a recent report of the activities of this laboratory during the year 1924, which states as follows, according to the Baltic Scandinavian Trade Review : “Practically all the creameries of the country (1600) took part in the tests for quality during the year 1924. A total of 1352 of the 1600 were co-operative creameries. The co-operative creameries are also much the largest and produce the best butter. The tests for the water content of the butter showed that practically all the butter comes within the limit of 16 per cent, fixed by law for export butter. In regard to quality of the butter, the report states that 93.3 per cent, of all the butter can with, full justice be termed really first-class butter. This percentage is only of interest to foreign countries, however, in so far as it shows how rationally the butter production is conducted, as, of course, only first-class butter is exported. Altogether 308,644,000 lbs. of butter were produced in 1924, 271,165,8001bs of which were exported. The home consumption thus amounted to only 37,478,2001b5., or 12 per cent, of the total production ” LIME FOR COWS A deficiency of lime in the ration of dairy cattle may be the cause of their failure io produce healthy calves. Tests have shown that cows on rations' markedly deficient in lime tend either to be sterile or to breed weak calves, while perfectly healthy offspring were born from the same cows after their feeds had been improved by the addition of lime. In feeding dairy cows or the human body such ingredients must be provided in the feed as are to be found in the product produced. Thus, everything which appears in the milk must first be found in the feed. If it is not found in the feed, it is certain never to appear in the product. In fact, production is at once reduced when certain ingredients found in the milk are not fed.

COWS FOR DAIRYING THE IMPORTANT ORGANS. FUNCTION OF MATERNITY. The basis of dairying is the maternity of the cow. It is the mother function that arouses the milk organs into activity for the feding of the offspring. Many generations of selection and breeding by man have prolonged the period of activity of these organs in the dairy cow, but the beginning is always the function of reproduction which must occur with considerable regularity in profitable cows. In order that this may occur with the least tax upon the general vigour and activity of the cow, she should have broad hips and a high pelvic arch, furnishing ample room for the young before birth, and providing for its easy delivery. The chest should be deep, providing room for generous-sized heart and lungs. These organs, vital in every animal, are required to do more than ordinary work in the case of the dairy cow. The digestion of a large amount of food and its conversion into milk requires an expenditure of energy and vitality equal to that expended in hard work. Therefore, there should be a vigorous circulation of blood and ample supply for its purification and for a large supply of oxygen. The tract devoted to digestion prepares the food for assimilation into the tissues, the udder elaborates the milk, the heart forces the blood, with its load of food and oxygen, through the body, the lungs supply oxygen to the blood, and remove from it the product of the oxidation which takes place in the body; but the brain and nerve system are concerned in all these operations. Through the influence of this system the activities of all the organs are aroused, guided, controlled and harmonised. In the cow the heart and lungs are ever active. The digestion, absorption and assimilation of food, and perhaps the mysterious elaboration of milk, are constantly going on. It has been estimated by Collier that a cow giving an average quantity of milk produces over 138 million fat globules per second during each 24 hours. This and the secretion of the other constituents of the milk illustrate the amount of activity in the udder alone, and suggests the need of a highly-developed nerve system. The more pronounced nutward signs that indicate this nerve development are a bright, lively and prominent eye, this prominence causing a dished face; a wide forehead; a wide junction of the skull and spinal column, indicating a large brain; a large prominent backbone, giving room for a well-developed spinal cord; a long slim tail, and considerable energy and vigour and style of action. MEAT AND BUTTER

BIG SHIPMENT FOR ENGLAND. A very large shipment of meat and butter will be loaded in New Zealand for England by the Shaw-Savill and Albion steamer Gallic*, which is now berthed at Queen’s Wharf. In addition to Auckland, cargo will be loaded at Gisborne, Napier, Wanganui and Wellington. All the holds are insulated for the carriage of refrigerated cargo. Most of the space will be taken up by meat, of which 135,000 freight carcasses (each 601 b in weight) will be carried. Very little butter will be loaded, the amount being 13,500 boxes from Auckland, and 2500 boxes from Gisborne. Last season the Gallic took a large shipment of nieat to Genoa and London. In December, 1920, she was dispatched from Auckland for London with 135,608 boxes of butter and 28,603 freight carcases of meat. It was the largest amount of butter that has been shipped from New Zealand in one vessel.

BUMPER CROPS GOOD SEASON IN CANADA. HEAVY YIELDS. Wheat growers in Canada this season have been able to market their wheat under exceptionally faourable conditions the reported shortage from other exstead, and the yields were heavy, the total crop being placed at 422,000,000 bushels. Leaders of the industry in Canada recognised that there was a good prospect of prices being high, as Russian and Balkan exports were small, and the crop of the United States was small. The subsequent outlook in Argentina also assisted Canada, as it meant that selling pressure on the pare of the Dominion could be checked, at least for a time. The Northern Hemisphere this season, excluding Russian, was estimated to produce 2,909,379,000 bushels, of wheat, compared with 2,644,210,000 bushels in 1924, and 1,222,256,000 bushels in 1923. In September the Soviet Government issued reports that Russia would have a crop of wheat approximating 661,000,040 bushels, and that a large quantity of wheat would be available for export. A few shipments were made, but since then Russia has failed to act as an influence in the market. PIG FODDER VALUE OF CEREALS AND CLOVER Cereals of various kinds provide a useful and cheap food for pigs when sown in the autumn and fed off green in the spring and early summer. They follow on after the green crops proper have been exhausted and fill in the gap until the first of these crops—rape —comes in again. Oats, rye and wheat can all be utilised in this way, the rye being sown first, and the oats and wheat following on in that order. Beans and tares may also be sown with these cereals to provide a varied feed which will be much relished by the pigs, and will well repay in most seasons the labour entailed in growing them. Tares, beans, and oats provide, perhaps, one of the best green food mixtures that can be grown. Clover, of course, provides an excellent pig feed, and it will usually appear in abundance on any land where pigs have been running, even though there was not a sign of it there before. Lucerne, however, is an even more valuable crop, and there is no more useful plant than this, especially in a dry season. Lucerne roots very deeply, so that in a hot summer, when all the grass is drier! up and other plants stand still, it serves as an invaluable standby. There cannot be any doubt that the salvation of pig farming is largely to be discovered in the growing of such crops as have been referred to here, for while concentrated foods must necessarily be used for fattening porkers or for finishing off bacon pigs, these may be largely replaced by foods fed in the natural state during the earlier stages of the fattening pig’s existence. Store stock may be kept, if not entirely, at any rate so far as the larger part of their maintenance is concerned, on any of these bulky crops which play so important a part in satisfying the hunger of animals which, if they are to develop properly and mature quickly, must never be allowed to go with an unfilled stomach.

“Our investigations show that while the Ontario farmer has been getting 76;23 per cent of the selling ptice of butter in the United Kingdom, the New Zealand farmer has been receiving only 73.24 per cent; or, to put it in another way, for every dollar’s worth of Canadian butter sold in the Old Country, the producer receives 76.23 cents and the New Zealand farmer only receives 73.24 cents.

“Mr. Singleton has also been studying the relative returns to New Zealand and Canadian cheese factory suppliers, and finds that the Canadian supplier of milk for cheese factories is even more favourably situated than the Canadian ‘supplier of butter factories. “The nett returns to New Zealand cheese factory suppliers were taken from the published statements of 42 factories, with an average annual out put of more than 500 tons of cheese. The nett price to the producer per lb of fat was 38.64 cents (19.32 d for the year ended July, 1925. The Canadian producer’s nett return was based on the actual figure from four factories in Lanark county, Ontario, the average nett price to the farmers being 24.67 d per lb of fat for the season 1925. Putting these figures against the London quotations for the respective periods he finds that while New Zealand farmers received 68.73 cents out of every dollar’s worth of cheese sold in the United Kingdom, the Canadian milk producers, in the factories quoted, have, in this comparison, an advantage of 14.59 cents from each dollar’s worth of cheese sold in the Old Country. lam inclined to think it would be better for our cheese business if it cost more to manufacture; but, even so, it must be apparent that New Zealand dairy farmers have no advantage over their Canadian competitors in the matter of manufacturing and marketing expenses.

“It would be interesting if we could carry this comparison to the production of milk, but that is a much more difficult matter, and I can only refer to it in general terms at present.

“To begin with, the New Zealand dairy farmer has a much longer investment than the Canadian dairy farmer has. Land, without buildings, may cost anywhere up to 500 dollars an acre in New Zealand; so the point often quoted in the New Zealander’s favour—that he has no expensive stabling to provide—is not a point at all. Then, again, the New Zealand farmer makes less out of the whey and skim milk. Only enough pigs are raised in the country to supply the local market. There is no export of bacon. With only a little over a million people to feed, the home market is soon supplied. Many farmers keep no pigs at all, and waste the skim milk and whey.

“Mr. J. W. Dafoe, editor of the Winnipeg Free Press, who visited New Zealand with ,the Imperial Press Conference last summer, in his published impressions, speaking of the price of land, says: ‘With that ball and chain on his leg, the New Zealand butterfarmer has no advantage at all over his competitor in Canada.’ ” CHEESE GRADING COMPULSION MOOTED. It is gratifying to note from various statements made by officials of the Dairy Division, that the quality of our butter at least shows a steady upward movement, a fact due, no doubt, to a general improvement of the raw material as well as more up-to-date methods in ite manufacture. Great credit is due to the system of farm instruction encouraged by the Dairy Division, as well as to the system of cream grading adopted by a large number of factories. At the same time, it must be obvious to anybody in close touch with the industry, that there is still a haphazardness about both these systems which greatly minimises the good results obtained in individual cases. Both farm instruction and cream grading should be universally adopted and until such time as they become just as much part of our general system as the grading of our butter and cheese, the New Zealand dairy industry will never reap the full benefits from these splendid measures. It is satisfactory to find that the Director of the Dairy Division is coming round to the same way of thinking, and in his New Plymouth address the other day foreshadows the compulsory grading of all cream for butter making. “It is pleasing to be in a position to state,” said Mr Singleton to the conference of factory managers assembled at New Plymouth, “that many dairy companies—and this includes their managers—have -this season made successful endeavours to improve the quality of their butter and cheese. There I has probably been no period that I can recall when producers, dairy company directors and managers, have given the question of quality so much attention, and have co-operated so heartily in doing something tangible in this direction. This has been evidenced by the extension of cream grading and the payment of differential prices for different grades of cream, and linking up with this grading, the giving of instruction on the farm in the care of milk and cream. “Some of us are hopeful that next season it will be obligatory on all dairy companies to grade cream for the manufacture of butter and to vary the prices according to grade,” he continued. “There is a general consensus of opinion amongst dairymen and those connected with the industry that all companies should adopt this practice. The majority of dairy companies are already grading, and it is known that many of those not grading would welcome compulsory grading. As a matter of fact, I know of only one dairy company which has registered an objection, although I shall be agreeably surprised if we do not receive an objection from at least another company.” FARMERS AND ELECTRICITY An American authority says:—“Electrical sunshine or, rather, the power, light, and heat that electrical energy so easily furnishes, means more to agriculture than to almost any other industry. The bright lights of the city have attracted our youth. The oil lamp and the dangerous lantern at the barn have a depressing effect on rural life. The drudgery of household cares are peculiarly heavy in the farm home, and yet there is not a household task but electricity can lighten or brighten. Much of the farm work will yield better to electrical power than to any other. For an example: The milking machine and the water pump require that even, steady power that the electric motor so easily and cheaply delivers. The seasonal tasks, like ensilage cutting, etc., require an abundant and certain power. Thus, we can see the limitless opportunity that opens before us. “It is true that the central station system is peculiarly adapted to the farm field, but it must not be forgotten that the independent unit has been of incalculable value to the farm and home. From the standpoint of light, the vacuum cleaner and similar domestic use, the independent plant has its place. There should be equipment made available so that the isolated farmer who cannot expect a power line in the near future can have his light and similar blessings from his own independent unit.”

BUTTER AND CHEESE COSTS OF PRODUCTION. “There is another aspect,” said Dr. Ruddlck to a meeting of Ontario dairy farmers when discussing the question of competition With New Zealand, “which I cannot go into fully at this time. I refer to the relative costs of manufacturing and , marketing in Canada and New Zealand. Mr. J. F. Singleton, chief of the dairy , markets and cold storage division of the dairy branch in New Zealand, has been i making a study of this matter, and it ; will suffice for the present to say that he I finds the Canadian milk producers are i getting a larger percentage of the selling j price of butter and cheese in the United Kingdom than New Zealand farmers are.

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