90 POSSIBILITIES OF THE FUTURE 



from the Development Fund are the owners of cows used for 

 milk -production. There is room, then, for a great increase in 

 the numbers of these subsidized bulls, and it is of vital import- 

 ance to insist that, except under special conditions, all subsidized 

 bulls should be bred from dual-purpose stock. 



A register of cows giving good yields of milk has wisely been 

 begun by the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries. In this 

 register are recorded, under a number tattooed in the cows* 

 ears, the names of all cows that have given a specified quantity 

 of milk. It is most desirable that this registration should be 

 extended in every possible way. Further, it is most important 

 that the heifer calves from these cows sired by bulls of good 

 milking ancestry should be identified. The reason for this is 

 clear when it is remembered that the calves dropped on the 

 milk-producing farms are often sold on the 'public market 

 when a few days old. These are frequently bought by dealers 

 who dispatch them to rearers living at very considerable dis- 

 tances from the milk-producing farms. As things are at the 

 present moment, the rearer has no sort of record of the breeding 

 of the calves he receives. He may be rearing the offspring of 

 good or of bad milking stock. If he chances on good ones he 

 cannot, not knowing the place of their origin, make sure 

 of securing their fellows at a future sale. Whereas if all calves 

 from registered cows sired by good bulls were marked or 

 branded systematically, they would carry with them the record 

 of their parents' good quality. In this way a demand would be 

 set up for reliable stock of known usefulness, and the breeders 

 would receive some financial reward for producing useful calves. 

 Until this is done, there is no encouragement for the man who 

 cannot rear his own stock to breed good commercial cattle. The 

 system, once started, would not involve very much trouble and 

 it might be made the basis of the levelling-up of every low- 

 grade herd in the country. Almost certainly co-operation 

 between breeder and rearer would follow in the course of a few 

 years and .abolish much of the jobbing which is the result of 

 marketing the unhappy little calves, often exposed for days to 

 hunger, cold, and rough treatment while travelling between the 

 place of their birth and the rearer's calf-house. The harm thus 



