SEMI-OFFICIAL TESTING.

Waipa Post, Volume IV, Issue 184, 31 January 1913, Page 4

SEMI-OFFICIAL TESTING.

STATEMENT BY AN EXPERT. The semi-official testing of purebred dairy cows by the Dairy Produce Division of the Department of Agriculture has, according to Mr W. M. Singleton, Assistant-Dairy Commissioner, been well supported in this, its first season. With the general extension of association cow-test-ing among ordinary milking herds the demand for purebred bulls of good milking-strain has become accentuated, and to enable breeders to place authentic records before intending purchasers the obtaining of semiofficial yearly records became a necessity. Every effort has been made to place these records above suspicion, and, Mr Singleton says, breeders have met the Division very heartily in this respect. The Holstein-Friesian and Jersey breeders have adopted the system and there are now entered in test for semi-official certificate 123 Holsteins and 106 Jerseys. A number have been entered and have been withdrawn from competing for certificate, owing to their not meeting the requirement of having dropped a calf within fifteen months previous to the commencement of the test. For this' first season a number of these cows are being tested, and the owners will be given a signed statement of the cows' production but no semi-official certificate will :be available, neither can their names be included in the list of cows having qualified. In all, over two-hundred and fifty cows are in yearly test; their daily weights of milk being recorded by the owners and. checked by the officers of the Dairy Produce Division, who also make the monthly fat determinations.

The milking herds of the experiment farms are being submitted to the same checking and testing by the Dairy Division as are other purebred cows under semi-official test. With these the total number of cows under this yearly test will this season exceed three hundred. Thefigures obtained will, Mr Singleton points out, be of great benefit to all concerned, and especially to the dairy farmer seeking to purchase a purebred bull with a performance pedigree. Jt will also benefit the breeders, for a dairyman does not object to paying more for an animal backed by a good authentic yearly butter-fat record.