IN AND ABOUT THE FARM.

Waipa Post, Volume V, Issue 242, 29 August 1913, Page 4

IN AND ABOUT THE FARM.

SOILING CROPS FOR COWS. A BEAST TO AN ACRE. An American farmer whose holding of less than 200 acres carries no milking cows all' the year round and shows a handsome cash profit on the investment, gives a lead that might be followed with profit by the majority of dairy farmers in this country where kind is expensive. The secret of the Americans’ success is found in the adoption of the system of feeding soiling crops to his cattle. Only one small field is laid down in permanent pasture. In the summer, green rye and wheat, mixed with lucerne form the first rotation, next oats and peas and lucerne, then maize and lucerne, and last in late summer, maize ensilage, with a little lucerne. The winter ration is made up of maize ensilage, lucerne hay, and sometimes a little mixture of wheat middlings, gluten and linseed meal to balance up the roughage. When lucerne ensilage is used the grain ration is reduced. Signs are not wanting to prove that the New Zealand dairy farmers are awakening to the possibilities of increased income through the systematic use of supplementary fodders for their cows all the year round. It should not be long before a large area of the best dairying country-will be carrying a beast to the acre which will, in addition, give a better average yield of milk than has been shown under the old conditions of pasturage. Herd-testing is being generally adopted and the unprofitable cows cast aside, but to give a cow a fair chance to prove her worth she must be provided with sufficient material of the right kind; therefore systematic feeding must go hand-in-hand with culling.