761 



Dairy 



TZORADJI," in the " Queenslander," 

 J\. writes : — When principles of 

 cleanliness and proper methods of hand- 

 ling products of the dairy have been in- 

 culcated in the farmers, they must also 

 keep foremost in their operations the 

 absolute necessity of establishing a dairy 

 herd of the first order of merit. Scripture 

 tells us that " no man by thought can add 

 one cubii to his stature,"" but thousands 

 of dairymen, by taking thought about the 

 management of their dairy herds, feeding 

 their cattle, and attention to their dairies, 

 could add one-third to their productive- 

 ness ; and all this would be clear profit — 

 the result of thought expressed in efi'ort. 



It is frequently noticed that not a few 

 farmers, when hearing of the profits de- 

 rived from private dairying, or from a 

 newly-established creamery, become ani- 

 mated over the prospects, and as a result 

 every cow on the farm, and every cow 

 that can be bought in the neighbourhood 

 regardless of quality, is drafted to con- 

 tribute its quota to the milk-pail. It 

 may be here stated that where the aver- 

 age Queensland farmer shows a lack of 

 those business-like qualities essential in 

 every trade or calling is in not keeping a 

 proper record of milking results of the 

 individual members of his dairy herd. 

 Therefore he is not in a position to tell 

 how many of his cows are giving a return 

 equal to the cost of feeding, or up to the 

 known capacity of ordinary cows. Some- 

 times a partial record manifests itself at 

 the end of a certain time, in working an 

 inferior dairy herd — a herd probably got 

 together without the slightest regard to 

 breeding or standard quality. The profit 

 is either a minus quantity, or so small as 

 to force the conclusion that dairying does 

 not pay. This dissatisfaction is fre- 

 quently contagious, and a number of 

 farmers in a single community have been 

 known to stop milking their cows, be- 

 cause they have found by experience 

 that there is no money in the business. 

 A man might with just as much pro- 

 priety buy up all the razorback hogs he 

 could find, and after a year's experience 

 declare that there is no money in raising 

 pork, as to say there is no money in 



Cows. 



milking cows. There is no doubt there 

 are many cows in Queensland practically 

 " eating their heads off," to say nothing 

 about the expense of labour or interest 

 on the money invested. 



In grading a dairy herd so as to weed 

 out the unprofitable cows the usefulness 

 of the Babcock test on the farm has been 

 maae apparent by experience. Mr. 

 Thomson, the South Australian Govern- 

 ment Dairy Expert, recommends this 

 valuable apparatus to the farmer, who 

 can, at a trivial cost, determine the capa- 

 bilities of each cow, and by a little care 

 and tact can grade his herd to a class of 

 creditable milkers. Obscure ideas of the 

 merits and demerits of foods would no 

 longer exist in the minds of the 

 doubtful. Experiments could be con- 

 ducted to ascertain relative values 

 of the feed given, and great would 

 be profit were the Babcock and the 

 balance put into universal use. The 

 spring balance is suspended from the 

 wall support of the milking shed, and the 

 operator records the weight of the milk 

 in a register. The four-bottle Babcock 

 machine and flasks should be on hand, 

 together with the acid, additional flasks 

 and pipettes. The simplicity of the 

 practice enables anyone to carry it out to 

 complete satisfaction in grading milking 

 stock, and readers will understand the 

 good influence this introduction to 

 modern dairying will exert in future. 



The following may be taken as an ex- 

 ample where weighing milk from each 

 cow has been practised and systematic 

 dairying conducted. A dairy farmer in 

 South Australia possesses a very fine herd 

 of milking stock. He began dairying 

 with one cow, and in 1893 he owned four 

 cows, which yielded an average of 450 

 gallons of milk each for the year. In 

 1896 his herd had increased to eighteen 

 cows, and the record was 547^ gallons to 

 each cow. In 1897 the average for twenty 

 cows was 720 gallons, and in the year 

 1900 twenty-five cows averaged 800 

 gallons. The quantity of milk did not 

 rise at the cost of quality, as the percen- 

 tage of fat in the milk of the twenty-five 

 cows had never fallen below 4 per cent., 



