MILK RECORDING,

Waikato Times, Volume 108, Issue 18165, 1 November 1930, Page 22 (Supplement)

MILK RECORDING,

FIRST TESTS IN SCOTLAND. The story of how milk recording started has been told by Mr James Mackintosh, a -Scottish agriculturist. Milk recording) he explains, is to many farmers a comparatively new idea, and although the practice has become much more popular during the last fifteen years, there are still thousands of dairy farmers who consider the weighing of the milk; of individual cows in their herds an unnecessary and unprofitable labour. In view of this example of the hesitation *o[ many dairy farmers to adopt a new idea, it is interesting to learn that in ■at least one dairy herd milk recording was practised over 100 years ago. Early in the nineteenth century William Harley established the Willowbank Dairy on the _ outskirts of Glasgow. His main object was to •supply the inhabitants of the city with milk of a quality they might rely on, and by 1814 his dairy of nearly 300 cows had become famous throughout the country. Amongst the many novel points in his management, it is stated that on ‘‘one day in every week at least (Friday was the usual day at Willowbank) it was the custom to measure the quantity of milk supplied by each cow morning and evening.” He also used lactometers and milk tubes to determine the quality of the milk yielded by each cow, in order that the milk which produced most cream might be selected for cream raising. For the next 70 years the pioneer work of Mr Harley seems to have been entirely forgotten, but from 1880 onwards the “Journals" of the Royal Agricultural Society contained occasional references to milk records and to the yields given by individual cows in a few .herds in the hands of progressive owners.