FARMING IN SCOTLAND

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLV, Issue 21090, 16 July 1938, Page 15

FARMING IN SCOTLAND

MILKING MACHINES MOKE GENERAL RUBBER TYES ON DRAYS A New Zealand visitor to Scotland recently spent a few days at an Ayrshire Stud farm at Thornhill, County Dumfries, Scotland, and writing to relatives in New Plymouth he explains that farm labour troubles there are just as difficult as they are in New Zealand, and that to overcome the problem milking machines are becoming more general. The herd consists of 35 pedigree Ayrshire cows. They are never all dry at once, matters being so arranged that the same number are being milked all the year round. The byre man is up at 4 a.m. to feed the cows, and they are fed again after milking, which begins at 6 a.m., and then again at noon, 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. The herd is tested and is Grade A and the milk goes to Glasgow, being collected each morning. At one time it went to London. Tests are carried out every 28 days by an Inspector of two milkings—night and morning. The cost is 2/6 per cow per year and in addition the inspector is provided with a bed and meals free. Milking Machines “Milking machines are becoming much more general,” the letter continues, “especially since electricity came into the district—it has been installed at this farm for three years. There is a lot of evidence for and against them, but the opinion seems to be that the cows go dry quicker than when milked by hand, but that there is an increased flow while they are in milk so that the average is about the same. “Now that labour is so dear and scarce machines will have to be adopted.. It costs about £l3O to instal one for a herd of 35 cows, approximately 16/8 a month to run. “The cows stay inside practically all the year. For two months in summer they are only in at night going out into the fields between milking, times. For most of the year they are inside for the 24 hours, so there is a great deal of work keeping the byres clean, feeding, watering and so on. "This particular farm also runs sheep. The ploughman looks after the four horses, and the drays have big rubber tyres, which lighten the load by four times; that is one horse can pull a load four times as heavy as it could in a dray with ordinary wheels. This applies, of course, to field work and especially on soft ground. "In addition to the dairy herd and sheep, fowls, ducks and turkeys arc kept.”