FARM AND DAIRY

Taranaki Daily News, 19 December 1929, Page 20

FARM AND DAIRY

IMPROVING PRODUCTION. CALIFO UNIA’S ACHIEVEMENT. What can be achieved by cow-testing is well illustrated in California, where dairymen have added nearly £13,000,000 to their income in the last seven years by raising the average butter-fat production per cow from 1831 b to 2391 b. At the beginning of the effort in 1920 the Californian extension service set up as a goal, to be reached in ten years, a State average production of 2651 b of but-ter-fat per cow. Seven years’ concentration on a dairy improvement programme, including proper feeding, breeding, and. culling, has brought them well on their way to accomplishment of the ’goal within the time set. During the seven years the number of cows under test in the regularly organised associations increased from 30.00'0 to over 70,000. The work of these associations is the basis of the improvement programme. From the testing records is derived the information necessary for proper feeding, breeding, and the detection of unprofitable animals in the herd.

Other factors in bringing up the average in butter-fat production have been competitions, both in individual production and community records, efficiency studies, of individual herds, use of better breeding stock, improvement of the health of herds, provision of better facilities for care and management of herds, and the introduction of better management methods, and boys, and girls who are members of junior clubs. ’ Exactly the same thing is possible in New Zealand dairying. Individual tested herds have shown much, greater proportional increases than the Californian figures indicate, but the object is to bring up the general average of the dairying industry as a whole. Herd-testing in the Dominion has increased the average yield from 1681 b to 2251 b in the course of a years. The 2391 b achieved by the Californian dairyman should not be difficult, and the 2651 b aimed at, possible, within another decade.

THE REASON OF THINGS. ' KNOWING AND NOT KNOWING. If a person were to inquire as to why certain men become students of their business, he would find that they lay great stress on the importance of knowing the reason of things, comments Hoard’s Dairyman. The difference between the successful and unsuccessful dairy farmer is generally that one knows the reason of things he is trying to do and the other does not. If we take so simple an example as supplying the cow with all the pure water she needs, reason tells us that about seven-eighths of all milk is water; that the more milk a cow yields, the more water she must drink; that if she is not furnished with this water in a way that she can get it without too much exertion, she will go without it, to our most evident injury’; that if in winter the water is too cold, the cow will not drink the amount - of water she really needs for our profit. All these things or conditions belong to the reason of. things, or to the absolute nature of the cow in her relation to water.

If w r e note how many farmers violate this established reason of things, w’e can see how little some of them know and understand the nature of the cow or the nature of the very profit they are seeking. A humorous old Scotchman once said that the reason why there were so many poor dairy farmers was because they had a sort ’of lazy faith • in the Lord. ‘’They think or hope,” he said, “that He will somehow make up for whatever they fail to do.” “Oh,” he added, “w r e are a trusting lot.” Come to think of it, there is a great deal in the kind of faith we have in Providence, but we must look into the reason of things if we are to be grea.t students of our business and secure the success that' we all desire.

GRASS CULTIVATION. EXPERIMENTS AT ROTHAMSTED. GRAZING TRIALS UNCONVINCING Experiments in the cultivation and feeding value of grass were carried out as usual during the year 1927-28, at the Rothamsted Experimental Station. Grass presents special problems, says the annual report of the station, because it is not a single crop but a mixture, the members of which are competing with one another. Further, the value of grass is not sufficiently expressed -by its weight; it depends not only on the kind of plant but on the way the plant grows, whether leafy or stemmy.

Turn qualities are important to the farmer; palatabi.lity and feeding value. Palatability is tested in the Woburn experiments in Broadmead, where ’grass is treated with lime, basic slag, superphosphate, potassium salts, on separate unfenced plots, all of which are then grazed by animals free to wander where they will. They congregate on the most palatable herbage and leave the rest; they choose always the plots treated with lime and phosphate. Feeding value is tested at Rothamsted; the plots are fenced in and the animals are given no option as to where they shall go. They are weighed each fortnight.

SKILFUL AND CLOSE GRAZING The results again show the value of phosphate, especially in the form of basic slag of high solubility; within certain limits they show that a 2 per cent, solution of citric acid is a useful agent for estimating agricultural valuer though others are being tested, with promising results. The experiments have emphasised the importance of skilful and Close grazing in the management of grassland; this is even more important than manuring and indeed, some of the records show that a properly manured pasture badly grazed may be worse than one left unmanured.

Grazing experiments are .however, the most unsatisfactory of all field trials, states the report. They are crude and liable to gross error. They answer well enough , to show strikingly obvious differences and, with proper precautions to ensure success, they can make effective demonstrations, but they give little or no information beyond what a competent grazier could deduce on mere inspection of the herbage. The variations in the individual animal, the marked difference in results, according as one more or one less is put on a particular plot, and the impossibility of allowing for the maintenance requirements, complicate a problem already rendered difficult by the variations in the land itself. The station is endeavouring, during the present season, to improve the method so as to make it yield more useful results. The mowing method used, successfully in

certain investigations is also being tested. MANURING OF HAY. Much clearer results are obtained in the manuring of hay land. Experiments on this subject were begun in 1856 on grass which even then was very old, and they have been continued ever - since, the land being hayed every years, two crops being taken without grazing. The results show the importance of potassic and phosphatic for ensuring quality, and of nitrogenous fertilisers for giving bulk and early growth. The effect of slag depends on its solubility ; slags of GO per cent., or more solubility in tho 2 per cent, citric acid solution are more effective than those of 40 per cent, or less. The experiments show that tho old citric solubility test is of considerable practical utility m discriminating between the various slags now offered to the farmer, and they show the wisdom of insisting on a high s Nubility in general. Low soluble slags may be bought only when the farmer has good reasons to know that they will act well.

FATTENING CALVES. A PECUIAR METHOD. Australian veterinary inspectors ■ have reason to be proud of their work, as according to a report of the Australian veterinary officer in Great Britain to the Minister for Markets and Transport (Mr. Paterson), the examination of consignments of Australian mutton disclosed that in not one instance was there a single condemnation. Reference is made in the report to a peculiar system of fattening calves for the production .of veal for marketing. The method, which is of Dutch origin, is to take the calf from the mother and place it in a dark, warm, and thoroughly dry pen. It is not stated whether the absence of light has any effect on the resulting colour of the veal, .which is pale, and considered most desirable. The calf is fed entirely by hand on whole milk, to which eggs are added when they are considered cheap enough to warrant it. The calf is muzzled, and in the bottom of the muzzle is placed some chalk, which prevents acidity and consequent ills, aids digestion and growth, and is believed to have, a whitening effect upon the flesh. By this method (it is stated) a calf can be produced in three months to weigh 1201 b to 1301 b (dressed), valued at £8 to £9 on the Smithfield market.

LIGHT OAT CROP. CANTERBURY FORECAST. It is practically certain that the oats crop this season will be one of the lightest for some years (says the Christchurch Press). The dry weather affects oate more than wheat. They are shallower rooting, and do not get the same moisture from the subsoil as wheat, and the dry, hot winds of the past few days, following on the lack of rain in the spring, have reduced pros--.pects on normal land by bushels per acre. Oats in ear in Mid-Canterbury before the middle of November indicate a premature ripening; and on the lighter land there are to be seen fields well in ear. A similar condition prevailed in 1923-24, when the average of 6,0()0,000 bushels of the preceding four years fell to 1,964,511 bushels. Naturally, the first call on the oats crop is for chaff, and, though the use of the tractor is reducing the need for chaff each year, team owners must make chaff provision before threshing for the market. It frequently happens in seasons of light crops that when the chaff needs are provided there are insufficient oats left to justify the pulling in of the mill, and the whole • lot is chaffed. As a rule there are numerous stacks to be seen throughout the province at this time of year. Such is not the case this season. There has been such a heavy use by farmers on their sheaf stacks for chaff for ewes that most of the reserve has been used up, in addition to which the export of chaff north has been largely increased this year. The actual cause of this revival is not apparent, but the racehorse population is not getting any less. The prospects are that yields will show a substantial reduction, and values a correspondingly higher standard.

STERILTY IN COWS. EXPERIENCE IN WAIKATO. The temporary sterility in dairy cows is a perplexing condition of great economic importance. It is prevalent in dairy cows in the Waikato and throughout the world. Considerable work -has been done on it by all branches of agricultural science workers in New Zealand, but its cause is still undefined (says the New Zealand Herald). Cows affected -with the condition show practically no symptoms of any definite value except returning to the bull. It occurs on all types of pasture, and when it happens more than three times, the condition is considered chronic and the animals fattened off for the butcher because of their unprofitableness. Any percentage, or all the cows may be affected at one place, while at another everything is normal. Treatment used on one herd will not be efficacious when tried on another. The cows, the bull, pastures, diet, etc., have all come under suspicion as a possible cause, but so far

insufficient data has been available to decide any particular cause. This season’s work by the Department of Agriculture in the Waikato is being undertaken to eliminate bacteria as a possible factor, or to find a pathogenic micro-organism responsible, and to this end laboratories have been established by the Department of Agriculture at New Plymouth and Hamilton. Under these conditions, material can be collected from nearby farms and examined immediately. The research veterinarian for the district selects typical cases, learns the herd history, and carefully collects the fresh material. This is brought to the laboratory, where it is examined by the bacteriologist, who endeavours to track down micro-organ-isms likely to be the cause, after eliminating the normal flora of the reproductive tracts. The drive is expected to give a great deal of data, and at the end of the season it will be subjected to the scrutiny of the chief bacteriologist at Wallaceville, who will work out the percentages and kinds of bacteria met with in the three districts and continue the work on the herd there, if anything incriminating can be found.