FARMING IN OTHER LANDS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 7, 19 December 1911, Page 3

FARMING IN OTHER LANDS.

AMERICAN AND CANADIAN METHODS INVESTIGATED. “OU E E NS J.< A NI )ER ‘ S’ ’ COMA! IS,S I ONER ON TOUR. That Canada is a country of groat enterprises is proved by tjio achieve- , incuts of the last 15 years. tier fiinher and fruit industries, her fisheries, and agriculture have, developed by leaps and bounds, and yet Canadians declare that this land of almost , unexampled activity is hut on the ’ fringe of development. The cnin- ' paratively new province of Alberta, east of the Rocky Mountains, is expected to equal Manitoba in wheat production and to become one of the ’ chief dairying centres ol the world , within the next ten years. Impelled by the spirit of enterprise, and fortified by unbounded faith in the potcu- - tialities of soil and climate the Canai dian-Pacilic Railway Company has !' linked the east and west by a splendid railway system, created towns ami townships, and founded industries up-

on which rests the tremendous advance the Dominion has made and is still making. Having done much to develop agriculture the company is now giving great attention to irrigation and dairying. The wide stretch of prairie east of Calgary has been converted into a theatre of busy agronomic operations. The experimental farm was established at Calgary, primarily with the object of providing useful object-les-sons for the behoof of the army ol immigrants who are settling in Alberta, and also to produce supplies for the dining cars on its extensive railway system. The farm has a splendid system of irrigation, and the gamut of production is comprehensive. Not the least important feature is the “dairy department," and under die excellent management of Professor Elliott it is serving a great purpose. The professor holds the opinion that the three chief factors in successful dairying are: (1) Careful and skilful herding; (2) proper system of feeding; (3) cleanliness. As in Australia and New Zealand, herding hud no place in the lexicon of the Canadian dairyman until recent years, ft is gratifying, however, to find that ;his factor, of which the importance has yet to be fully realised, is receiving attention in this country as u’cll as across the seas. By a wise system of selection in breeding, by x judicious cross-breeding and by “figuring out results” stick as the quantity of milk and proportion of butter-fats, the herd at Calgary has been raised to a high standard of excellence. “My aim,” remarked Professor Eliott to the writer, “is to evolve a ype of cow which will not only give he best results in milk, but will also return the largest proportion of mtter-fats, and a vealer, or calf, vhich will command the highest price >i the market. 1 find the Holstein ■lie premier strain, and 1 am striving, iy a careful process of selection, msec! on tests extending over months hi every instance, to create a type vhich will provide an example to be Allowed by every dairy farmer in Alicrta.” Greater Returns Wanted. The professor very wisely enterains the belief that the exorcise of ntclligent selection ' in establishing lairy herds will result in an appreiable increase in the yearly returns of very dairy in the Dominion, and .Inis' add hundreds of thousands to .early profits, enriching the individual and enormously benefiting the at ate. I have made a careful inspection of ho splendid herd at the famous farm, ihe professor pointed out the Holbeins, the “Old Prairie” cows (descendants of .the Durham strain of ilood), and “Brown Swiss’ ’which had moved the most profitable. He raenioned that he. had proved to demonstration that in two years ‘by the idling and disposing to the butcher if every animal whose returns were .ppreciably below the fixed standard, lie profit per cow was increased neary 12s per week. “Now give it a vide application and you will form some idea'• of what it means to the dairying industry of the .Dominion,” said this enthusiastic experimentalist. (Tie Jersey is not popular in Canada, hough Professor* Elliott admitted .hat • hr such conditions as exist in Australia the Jersey would probably ■rove profitable. 1: But, lie declared ith cWphasis, “I am certain that the Holstein, under a judicious system f herding, which is a sine qua non 0 success in any country, is, boom! question, the most profitable. Ihe gives the most milk, equals the I‘ers'oy in butter yields, while her calf .'ill yield 50 per'Clint iiiorc as a v.ealw.” CrGedins and Feeding. Tu the course of a conversation I ad with Professor Ely, that gentleman deplored the lack of enterprise mong, some of the dairymen in the Rates, which was responsible for the omparatively poor returns. Ho said: 'Ton people in Australia should eri■ourage individual effort and enterprise. Governments can assist the ‘airyman just as they can the ag- . iculturist by providing object-lessons, lit the erection of the great indusry of dairying on a sound and perument foundation, assuring the fullst measure of success, depends eiiirely upon the enterprise, the intelligence, and enthusiasm of the individuals engaged in it. The implementnaker, the car-builder, and the manifacturer of the aaitomobile ask aao avour from the Government, and they nve their phenomenal success to caseless experiments, to the appliation of intelligence and energy to whatever industry they are engaged a. In his own interest the dairynan should be largely aia experimentalist. His great aim and object should he the increase of his yearly •eturns, which means the improve.cent of the quality of his herd.” Wo hear much about the cow and til too little about the bull. In the Mates of Illinois and ‘Wisconsin, the .wo greatest’dairying States of Amer,ca, there are individual owners who rill give as match as SOOdol. for a Tolstoui bull with a good family his.ory, while they would not dream of ’ using an animal, however good may 16 his points, whoso family history was in the least tarnished. In Canada the best results have been secur;d by using middle-sized bulls—the jig-framed, thick-necked, large-jointed animal is tabu—and the cross in most favour is that of the Holstein cum Jersey, or the small-sized Ayrshire. Mating a large-framed Ayrshire with 1 standard-sized Holstein proved a failure hot la in Kansas and at Delavin in Wisconsin. Professor Shaw clings to the opinion that the greatest success is to be attained by breeding from hulls light in the neck and shoulders, and he is firm in the conviction that crossing a thick-necked cow with a hull possessing a heavy forepart with a coarse nock is a short cut to disaster which may bo farreaching in results. At the Winnipeg show Mr Atwell Drown, a prominent dairyman near Columbus, Ohio, expressed the view that in years to come we should hear nothing of Swiss condensed milk. That industry would be transferred to Canada, Australia, and Now Zealand. Ho wont on to say that careful observation and comparison of costs and returns had convinced him there was 20 per cent more profit in condensed milk than iu butter, and he quoted flic operations at the factory established iu Delavan in confirmation ol his argument. In Canada and the United Slates the herd associations are rapidly gathering strength and serving a most useful purpose. It is claimed that during the last live years over 300 herds for decades nondescript in character have been purified—every animal in them is registered in the stud or herd hooks, and the average price per head has been raised twoney dollars. American Factories. Early breeding is condemned by the experts, both in Canada and America. I The dairymen in the stretch of coun- ! try between Rochester and Albany in I the State of New York rarely mate !their cows until they are close on 3 j years old. In Canada, especially on 1 the experimental farms, the males

and heifers are kept apart because of the belief that allowing the two sexes to run together detrimentally affects the heifers. 1 was handed a return of the results obtained from a herd of Jerseys and a herd of Holsteins, both fed on Indian corn, iu the Chicago district. Twenty-two Jerseys averaged 22s 6d per head per week for live months, while 18 Holsteins (a type herd) returned 29s 8d per head. In America the majority of the butter factories and creameries are owned bv individuals. Air E .D. Tilden, of Chicago, lias 19 factories, while others such as Air Ives, at Delavan Lake, control from three to six iactorics. They purchase on a Imtterfat basis and return the milk to the seller after it has gone through the separators. One of the largest owners of dairy cattle described the cooperative factory as a “monopoly” and said a comparison of the returns from his own factory and those of the company’s factory in Chicago showed a 5 per cent, gain in favour of individual enterprise. In the co-operative system in several oi the American States “graft” robs the producer, the dairyman especially, of a Considerable proportion of his profits. Australia has little to learn from America in methods of butter manufacture, hut the breeders in Canada and in sever al of the States across the border can teach a good deal in herding, in the feeding of cows, and iii the methods employed in milking and the provision of facilities for conveying the milk to the separators. The important subject of “dairy sanitation” is engaging attention in Canada, and some of the suggestions offered per medium of the Vancouver Press in July last wore most amusing. One writer held that no inaia wearing whiskers or a moustache should lie allowed to either milk cows or enter a dairy! In all the big dairies in the United States the milking sheds are Unshed with water both before and after milking, and the waste water, in quite a number of instances, is conveyed by pipes to the alfalfa, barley or' rye field, as the case may be, and used' for fertilising pui’poses. Feeding the cows has become a “fine art” in America and is indeed a great factor in the success achieved. I shall have something intereseting to sav in my next article about the fruit'industry an the Dominion and the United States.