Mmj 3, 1920.] Agricultural Gazette of N.S.W. 347 



in 1914. In No. 2 herd the most striking improvement was from 55 per 

 cent, in 1912 to 79 per cent, in 1913, while No. 3 herd also showed a 

 remarkable advance from 1912 to 1913. 



The records show that in some cases where the average milk yields showed 

 no increase it was ascertained on inquiry that the cause was persistence in 

 the use of a bull of poor production strain, so that while the lowest producers 

 were being culled out they were being replaced with home-bred heifers whose 

 yields were no better or were even worse than those being disposed of. In 

 other instances farmers ceased testing because they had farms of poor soil, 

 and thought their herd records would not compare favourably with others 

 obtained from higher class farms, quite forgetting that in herd testing and 

 the building up of a high producing herd of cows each farm makes its own 

 individual standard of comparison, and that, on poor lands as well as on the 

 rich, there will always be found stock of differing quality. Even on the poorer 

 soils it has been possible to show greatly increased average returns. In New 

 South Wales we have had similar instances where farmers have used these 

 excuses to cease or to decline to take up testing, and we have also many 

 cases where by the introduction of the testing system the j-ields have been 

 materially increased in a few years. 



Testing for the Milk Supplier. 



Some months ago an effort was made to initiate the herd-testing move- 

 ment in certain New South Wales districts whei'e dairying is carried on 

 mainly for the purpose of supplying milk for consumption in the city 

 (Sydney), or for selling to cheese or condensed milk factories. The proposals 

 laid before these dairymen were turned down as of no material benefit to 

 them, inasmuch as it did not, in their view, matter if cows produced 200 lb., 

 300 lb., or 400 lb. butter-fat, as long as th3ir milk exceeded the minimum fat 

 percentage (3.2 per cent.) laid down by the Board of Health as the standard 

 for milk to be used for human consumption. It would appear that Scottish 

 farmers take a different view, for testing societies were Oj^erating in a number 

 of districts in Scotland where milk was produced almost solely for direct 

 sale for human consumption, and on the majority of these farms cows were 

 calving at all pei'iods of the year. Particulars of thirteen of these testing 

 societies show that 8,546 cows and heifers were tested in 1915; of these, 

 50-5 per cent., or 4,320, were classified in Group I, as compared with an 

 average percentage of 46 for all cows tested during the same period. Only 

 in a couple of isolated cases, where farmers did not breed or rear their own 

 stock, was testing not availed of. One of these societies was then in its 

 ninth year, two had been in operation eight years, one seven years, and four 

 had five years' records to show. 



That which these canny Scots have found to pay them over such a number 

 of years is surely worthy of a trial for one year by New South Wales dairy 

 farmers similarly placed, who also should aim /or increased milk yields. 



