DAIRY – FARMING.

New Zealand Journal of Agriculture, Volume VII, Issue 1, 15 July 1913, Page 17

DAIRY - FARMING.

Primrose McConnell.

The subject of dairy-farming embraces so many things, all of which are of very great importance, that it is impossible here to do more than touch the fringe of .the more important phases of the 'industry. The field, indeed, is so wide that it is a matter of great difficulty to confine oneself within reasonable bounds.

A man may show wisdom by refusing to accept new. ideas without obvious evidence, but the so-called scepticism that hides mere indifference has nothing to commend it —and ’ it. is to be feared that disinclination, rather than . distrust, is the chief guide to many in deciding such points. . I would here attempt rather to emphasize the old than ,to advance anything that is startlingly new. We are in no danger of suffering from lack- of advice the danger lies in having to endure a redundance, and he is a wise man.who takes his readings “with a grain. of salt.” h

I trust there is no one who will read this who has, in his own opinion, nothing to learn in any branch of agriculture, for such a man has no business in this lower world—his proper place is paradise. No doubt many, like myself, have had a lifelong experience of dairy-farming ; but if your experience has led you in the same direction as my own, you will have come to a s like conclusion namely, that the more we know the clearer we see there is .still much to learn,- and the more we . realize the foolishness of ■ dogmatizing. The horizon in knowledge is never reached — simply recedes the further we advance; and no limits '.to agricultural knowledge can even be imagined. 'lt would be a drab world indeed if there were nothing more to learn, for it is the knowledge of our ignorance and an accompanying desire for. improvement that gives a real zest to human life.

I was much struck by a paragraph I came across in an agricultural paper the other day which - read as follows : “I have lived a good many years; I have tried to be a close observer of the things about me on the farm ; I have read all I could, and I have kept all I could understand ; but this I have come fully to believe : that of all the great mass of stuff that comes to us as knowledge, the things we think we know, there is but. little of it we do know :

that sticks to us, and that we can count on day after day as being really so.”

If we are to be honest with ourselves we must admit that the writer is correct in his conclusions, and that what seems to be the truth to-day may be negatived to-morrow. This may seem somewhat discouraging, but such failures should serve to stimulate rather than alarm the enthusiast. Agriculture has a wider field for the ambitious to work in than all other economic sciences combined, and of all branches of that work none gives a wider field than dairy-farming. In fact, as some one else has said, “ a man who is a successful dairy-farmer is on the top rung of the ladder of agricultural achievement.” Strange to say, the dairy-farmer is often described as a specialist, but no profession under the sun is so far removed from specializing ; indeed, no farmer can ever become a true specialist in the correct sense of the word, and, although he may direct his attention more to one line of his profession than another, he must always be a man of very many parts. The man does not deserve the description “ dairy-farmer ” who merely keeps a certain number of cows with a male animal at their head, and who is satisfied if he draws a limited quantity of milk. from his herd morning and evening, and trusts that providence will provide a fair quantity of food on his pasture. Such a system is delightfully simple (some one else has expressed it as extravagantly simple), but it can have no place in up-to-date dairy-farming. Just let us look for a moment at the necessary qualifications of a successful dairy-farmer: He must understand the cultivation and manuring of his soil in order that he may produce the greatest amount of suitable food on the smallest possible area ; he must have a knowledge of how to rear his stock in the most efficient and economical manner; he must make a study of the laws of heredity in order to breed on the right lines; he must be something of an engineer, something of a chemist, something of a botanist,' something of a veterinarian, something of a great many other things ; and if he manufacture his own dairyproduce he must be well up in the science of the dairy. If he means to keep abreast with the times he must be a reader, and in reading he . must be able to discriminate to some extent between the useful ■ and the useless ; and he must have business habits, the most important of which is punctuality (perhaps few of us realize how much is due to the latter qualification in successful dairyfarming). He must be the very essence of perseverance, and realize that for him an eight-hours day or- six days in the week can be indulged in only on very rare occasions. To be completely successful with his stock he must know them all thoroughly, and

have an affection for them second only to that for his family. If he looks upon them merely as tools for money-making he will defeat his own ends, and the money he makes will .be of small account. - Building up a Dairy Herd ♦ Now, in building up a dairy herd I recognize the enormous difficulties with which many New Zealand farmers have , to contend. In many cases both capital and experience are extremely limited, and for such the undertaking is comparatively slow. The demand for dairy stock is now so keen that it is a difficult matter, (if not impossible) for a beginner to gather up a reliable - herd at once. If he buy in the saleyards, let it be heifers only : the saleyard cow is, as a rule, a cull. Better be possessed of a few heifers and reliable cows bought at dispersal sales than to be the possessor of a large herd of culls that will not yield sufficient butter or cheese to pay for their keep; and the owner will soon feel that the work of attending upon such a herd is the very worst kind of drudgery, while good cows require no more attention and are a continual source of pleasure. When a • choice offers itself, the selection must be made by type and conformation in the absence of a pedigree of performance. A good type will have a great capacity .for storing and digesting a liberal supply of food, an indication of such a capacity being a large mouth, good length from the shoulder to the hooks, and well-sprung deep ribs. As a sign of good digestion the skin should be soft and pliable but not too thin, and the hair fine and velvety to the touch. A heavy, hard skin with wiry hair almost invariably denotes a bad thriver, which means bad digestion. A full eye will denote a nervous temperament such as gives vitality to the many parts of the body. On the other hand, the eye that is extremely prominent may be indicative of a weak constitution, as is the case among human beings. The ribs should be wide in themselves and have plenty of space between them. All good dairy cows persistently chew the cud when not eating. The udder should be capacious but not pendulous, rather should it be attached high, and when empty it should hang in folds of loose elastic skin. Good development of the fore udder is an essential point, and for great udder-development it is necessary that the thighs be incurved. The neck should be fine, of fair length, with a clean throat, and light dewlap; and the whole appearance of the cow should be feminine. There are many other points, such as escutcheon, milkveins, &c., that are indications of good dairy qualities, but none are infallible; and, as a matter of fact, the only real test of the dairy qualities of the. cow is the milk-record.

Having got the nucleus of a herd together, the owner should realize that if he expects the herd to do well for him it will demand treatment ■. tending to accomplish that end. In order to succeed he must have a - love for his work and take a real delight' in attending to the wants of his cows. This will create a kind of sympathy between owner and cow, culminating in the best possible results. He must know his cows individually, and study their likes and dislikes, and treat them with patience and kindness at all times. He must realize that the herd which comes to be milked when called will be infinitely more profitable than the one which has to be forced in with the aid of ’ a dog and stockwhip.

Selection of a Bull. The next thing to be attended to is the choice of. a sire; and although the average farmer cannot afford to commence with a herd of purebred cows, on the other hand he should, at any sacrifice, procure a purebred sire. It should, of course, be the ambition of every farmer to improve his stock, and this end may be greatly hastened by the use of a sire of undoubted milking strain. The old saying, The bull is half the herd,” should be taken to heart. You have no doubt often heard it said that if a man has a herd of, say, fifty cows, and assuming that they breed twenty heifer calves, these calves would possess half the blood of the bull, and the influence of the bull on' the heifer calves would be as much as that of the fifty cows. This is not strictly true (as experience teaches us), but it may safely be taken as one of the most useful rules in herd-building. When a farmer persists in using, a cheap mongrel bull he is employing the best means of courting disaster; and I am quite convinced that the use of inferior bulls is one of the very greatest hindrances to progress in dairy-farming. Neither should a bull be purchased because he has a pedigree, unless such pedigree prove that he has descended from ancestors who were possessed of undoubted dairy qualities and robust constitution. Such a bull is never too dear.

Once the breed of your sire is chosen, stick to it through thick and thin ; do not commence crossing and recrossing. If we persist in indiscriminate breeding no real success need ever be looked for ; and it is the persistent crossing of all kinds of live-stock that is the bane of the whole live-stock industry. It is the ' utmost folly for . a dairy-farmer to expect that he can ever improve his dairy herd by such a system. A good herd may be built up from crossbred cows by the use of a purebred bull possessing an undeniable pedigree of performance, while the use of a scrub sire as ■ a

foundation brings about evils which take years to eradicate. It is not my intention to recommend any special breed of bull, although, like every one else, I have my favourite breed. I recognize, however, that other dairy breeds have their good points. But, whichever one is chosen, it should be remembered that to be successful requires the greatest care and attention on the part of the breeder. Ancient history clearly shows that when breeders become careless and indifferent every trace of what is known as fine-blooded cattle is eradicated in a quarter of a century.