THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, AUGUST 13, 1928. METHODS THAT PAY

Wairarapa Age, 13 August 1928, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, AUGUST 13, 1928. METHODS THAT PAY

Dairy farmers and the district generally are to be congratulated upon the fact that herd; testing is making promising progress in the Wairarapa, and obviously is destined to expand rapidly in the immediate future. For years a few progressive farmers and others have been labouring to popularise testing and make its value known, and they have been assisted very notably by Mr. C. M. Hume, General Manager of the New Zealand Herd Testing Federation, in his periodical visits to the district. This campaign of education is now showing excellent results. There is something of a rush to get into the several association groups, and it miay be hoped that before long herd testing and calf marking will be taken up almost universally by dairy ft.Tmers throughout the Wairarapa.

A well-known expert observed some time ago that of those engaged in the dairy industry, only a percentage were dairy farmers; the rest • were merely milking cows. This is a profoundly important distinction, and the time has come when the man who merely milks cows obviously has no hope of making good in competition with the competent farmer using efficient modern methods. In dairy farming as in any other business, the man who muddles along using inferior methods and materials must expect to go> to the wall. Testing and calf marking are a certain means of enabling the dairy farmer to get much returns than would otherwise be possible, Many struggling dairy farmers in this country would have been in easy circumstances had they gone in years ago, as their competitors in Denmark did, for herd testing and calf marking. In his able and convincing demonstration of these facts, Mr. Hume has of late stirred even apathetic farmers to enthusiasm and here in the Wairara-

pa, as in other parts of the Dominion, a rapid extension of testing and calf marking may be taken for granted. Even now, however, a considerable number of dairy farmers continue to turn, a blind eye cn the golden opportunity that confronts them. As M.r. van Praagh observed at the annual meeting of the Gladstone groups on Saturday, there might very well be four groups in this part of the district instead of two, and] similar things might be said of other parts. The position, of course, will rectify itself. Unless he is in a position to pursue his industry as a hobby, the dairy farmer who neglects modern methods certainly will find himself in difficulties. will the farmer using these methods obtain much bigger factory returns, but the time is at hand, as Mr Hume has said, when unmarked dairy stock will be saleable only in the beef pens. Mr. Hume has l shown that it is possible for even the poorest farmer, by buying young marked calves, including a pedigree bull calf, to build up a high-production herd in a period Of three years. There is big profit to every individual farmer in going in for these methods. The present costs of testing and calf marking are small in proportion to the benefits obtained, but even these costs will be reduced and higher standards of efficiency will be attained as increasing numbers of dairy farmers adopt the only methods by which their industry can be made to yield really good returns.