THE DAIRY COMPANY.

Timaru Herald, Volume XCVIII, Issue 18084, 1 July 1924, Page 4

THE DAIRY COMPANY.

VALUE OF SEPARATOR MILK,

LECTURE BY MR A. M. PATERSON

In the ,F air view School on Sai> urclay evemng, JUr A. M. Paterson, M.R.0.V.5., gave a very interesting ana useiui lecture on “Ttte Hairy Cow.” JMr Butler presided and the sciiool room -was conuortaoiy nned. Tiie lecturer showed’now to make the most from the ordinary cow. Owing to New Zealand's many natural advantages, it was possmie, he said, for tne Dominion to become oho of the leading dairying countries in the world. They had richer soil and a better climate than Denmark, which in less than half a century, led the dairying world, although sue had the poorest class of stock to start with, and her best land consisted of undrained swamps, and wiiat sue did, iwnuicap-:pea-as.sue..was, tney ought to oe able ho. do in New Zealand. 10 reacn a iiign standard, they must aim iugli. Tliey wero beginning to see that with better breeding, better feeding, better management, more co-operation, and improved organisation, the dairy industry could bo improved, immensely, and •the standard of life on. dairy farms, raised enormously. ,He hoped that from now onwards they would increasingly divert the energy, intelligence and skill, they put forth, on to new and better lines. Their primary object as dairy farmers, was to produce milk of superior quality and superior quantity, so that its sale would enable them to meet all liabilities, and leave a substantial balance. But as milk ot superior quality and quantity could be obtained only from cows ot superior quality, it followed that they must secure such cows, as soon as possible, both by buying and by breeding. A dairy farmer, therefore, should, as onrly as possible, acquire a mental piotn -e of this type ot cow> so that ho would have some guidance in his breeding, ami ue aom to select right kinds when lie bought. In breeding, the first thing to get firmly implanted in the mind -was that the Jaws of heredity, if adhered to rigidly, and put info practice, would in the long run, prove to bo no broken reed oil which to lean. If a high quality animal was mated with one net. nearly so good, the offspring, although outwardly disappointing, would have the good blood which tlie high quality sire or dam, imparted to it; and duffer though it might appear, it should be bred from, because half of its blood was of the kind they wished to. increase in quantity iu nil their herds. They should keep in mind that- a calf represents the sire and dam in equal parts, and that sometimes the half transmitted b,y the lower grade parent was dominant, while that imparted by the high grade parent mjglit .be hidden —recessive, as the scientists called it. But although hidden or recessive, it was present nevertheless, and in succeeding generations would, declare its presence uiid become dominant, especially if the employment of high grade sires or dams were persisted in. .It was by this process of patient building up of good qualities, by the improving ol goou nlond from high quality parents that all the top-notch cows in the world were produced. And tho foundation stock on which all their remarkable qualities had been built upon were much lower in typo than the riock they had to start building up from. in considering the essential points oi a profitable cow, they should not burden their minds with, a dozen or more details, which had but the remotest hearing on milk production. They should master thoroughly the. most esvAt ini half dozen or so. The cow should have a good but tor fat record behind her. If she had not that they

should refuse to have anything to do witu Her. If a lugu quality cow was ottered for sale they should make certain that it was not -because she was in some obscure way defective. Fineness should be the outstanding characteristic—fine skin, fine hair, fine bone, a fine neck, a fine face, and a fine tapering tail. She should be roughly triangular in shape, tapering towards the fore' end, and widening towards the hind quarters to give room foi capacious digestive organs, aiid to provide space for the/ suspension of a large udder. The Udder should have its four quarters well developed, the quarters should be well rounded behind; and the whole organ should display a rich diffusion of bloodvessels oil its surface. The teats should be long, flexible • and fine, set well apart, and' an equal distance from one another. If the two hind one were well separated, but the two front ones were close together, then the two fore quarters of the udder were smaller than was desirable, and again there would be a deficiency of milk-making tissue, without which milk could not possibly be made. The so-called nnlk veins should be large and sinuous. II the udder were empty at the time of examination,, the milk veins might be small in appearance, but by pushing the fingers into the milk well the forward flow of blood in the milk veins would be checked, and would be dammed up in the milk veins, causing them to swell to their utmost capacity, thereby giving some idea of their natural size, when the udder was working vigorously. In poor milkers, the degree of distension which resulted from this damming up of the . blood was small. The reason of all this urns that the udder was a milk-making factory, to which the raw materials for milkmaking were conveyed' by the bloodstream. If this blood stream were great, then by adding to the food, they gave the animal, the . materials known to bo the best for milk-making, they could rest assured that rank would be made in great abundance. But if the blood flow to the udder were small, then no matter how much material for milk making might bo given in the food, only small quail titles would be conveyed to the udder, and only a small milk yield would result. They should look behind the udder lor numerous folds of loose skin when the organ was empty ; for the presence of these gave an indication of the degree of habitual distension which took place as the udder became filled. In poor milkers they were almost absent. .Such cows they should unhesitatingly reject.

With high quality cows they could not afford to be careless of their general comfort. It was essential in order to get tho best results, to give the cows a sense of comfort, at all times. To this end they must have good, roomy, clean comfortable sheds and yards, with shelters in tho paddock. Tlic.v should lime wash rather than paiiit their cow sheds, for cows wore ravenously fond of paint, and would lick it off tho walls and dio of leadpoisoning. If they would lmvo tha cow at her full capacity from one end of the milking .season to tho other, they must load tho blood stream with tho materials which science and oxperionoo told them worn tho best for milk-mak-ing. Tim supply of those in proper proportions, and in sufficient quantities at, most suitable intervals, constituted the science and art of feeding, which they must begin to study as a science, umi practmo ns mi urt, lo lot cowm take “pot” luck during the winter months, and eat what they could during tho milking sonson was a system of’dairy fanning calling for the minimum of intelligence and troublo. Nothing reallv worth while could bo accomplished'without trouble and iidolhgent effort. They should feed their cows all the year round and look after them without intormission.

Many systems of feeding dairy cows wero practised throughout tho world, but the one lie would outline was probably tho most general. They could modify it in any way to suit their par

ticular conditions, so long as they did not neglect the main fact, namely, that during the milking season the blood-flow to the udder must be made to convey continually the materials of milk-production; for if these were withheld from the food, while the blood still flowed to the udder, the milk-mak-ing machinery would be thrown idle, and money would thus be lost. Cows bailed up to be milked in the morning should have in front of them a small quantity of appetising food—hay or oaten straw. Munching at this they would be more easily milked, would not fidget, kick or “hold up” their milk, which would bo free from turnip After they wore milked they should be given a small feed of roots, say about 351bs each. These should be provided in a sheltered warm place, and in inclement weather, under cover. At mid-day they should be given a feed of grain steeped in boiling water and allowed to stand for some hours. Barley and oats were generally used, about lib of each. In the afternoon more hay should be given at milking time; and after milking another feed of roots. Last thing at night 11b of oil cake, cotton cake, or straw sprayed with Iniseed oil and molasses should be given; and the cows rugged and left for the night. In rugging they should make sure that the udder received protection. Those countries which had become prominent in the dairying world, did not hesitate to do these things; nor did those individuals who made tho greatest profits as dairy farmers. They should remember that the money put out on supplemental feed was returned in an unexpected and hidden way. A few years ago the chairman of the Bank of New Zealand spoke in the most glowing terms of a farmer in the North Island who made £ll per acre gross from his operations for the year; and this result was lauded by tho gentleman referred to, as the wonderful results of modern scientific dairy farming. Mr Paterson here showed a photograph of a cow which, fed as he had indicated, could be maintained on an acre of land, and returned its owner last year £75 15s for butter fat alone, to say nothing about its calf or tho separator milk. All their cows ought to net 3001bs of butter fat, instead of lOlOlbs, given by ’ ‘Pretty's Flirt” (whose photo he had just shown), and 3001bs at Is 6d equalled £22 10s. Then there was the calf, the offspring of a fairly good cow and a superior bull. How much was it worth? Then also there was about 700 gallons of separator milk. At say, Gd per gallon, that separator milk was by far the cheapest food at present within reach of the people of Timaru;. lor what was it really? It was milk with nothing but the butter fat removed from it and as the people of Timaru eat butter in any case, this milk, togethei with the butter used, represented every nutrient element in whole, milk, one quart of which was equal in constituent elements to 11b of the best steak. Furthermore, as the food of the people, throughout tho civilised world, is largely demineralised, to tho detriment ot human health, the separator milk supplied tho needed corrective, for it contained tho lime, potash, soda, magnesia, iron, phosphorus and chlorine, which were so thoroughly refined out of many of tho most popular food-stuffs. But, until the Timaru people become wise to theso facts, 'the dairy {armors would have to give this separator milk to pigs, instead of to human beings a casting of pearls before swine, with a vengeance. Pig-raising, and pig fattening wore lucrative adjuncts to dairy farming; indeed they were probably the most lucrative of all the many branches ol agriculture, when successfully carried out. As the Government had now in its employment an expert on theso matters, they should get into communication with him with a view of ascertaining how to most profitably utilise tho separator milk; and in the meantime, they should conduct an educational campaign among the people ot Timaru, .so that they might loarn something ajjout the value ol this milk, and thus assist to build up healthy, stal-

wart mon and women, such as they uscU to have iu Scotland when they lived on oatmeal and milk. (Applause.) Mr Paterson replied to a number ot questions, and was accorded a lieai ty veto of thanks. In response, to a request ho agreed to deliver another lecture at Fmrview at an early date.