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increasing European population steadily refuses to buy the milk from the 
native cowkeepers, who by the way are chiefly Indians, and resorts to 
the bottled or tinned brands so plentifully imported. The w ant of a good 
healthy and pure milk is sorely felt and the risk run in using the local 
article is so great that anything in the way of improving the qualities 
of the native cow will be warmly welcomed. 
The introduction of the English Shorthorn from Australia has 
been adopted by a number of people in the Federated Malay States 
with such good results as to warrant further experiments with this 
excellent breed. Being of a light build and not inclined to beefiness 
the Shorthorn seems to be well adapted to stand a tropical climate and 
up to the present time there have been surprisingly few failures. I have 
not heard of any other breed having been introduced but it is quite 
reasonable to expect that such breeds as the Guernsey and Jersey 
would stand our climate as well as the Shorthorn does. 
I would not advocate the introduction of herds of English cattle 
to supplant the Indian breed, this would undoubtedly be a failure ; but 
I certainly do advocate their introduction as a means of improving the 
native or Indian cow by interbreeding. I have seen several cross bred 
heifers of this nature from Shorthorn dams sired by Indian Bulls and 
in each case the Shorthorn blood has predominated At the Perak 
Government Dairy Farm at Maxwells Hill, Taipeng a herd at present 
numbering young and old about a dozen, is kept. The Bull is a pure 
bred pedigree Shorthorn of fine type and the cows are all wel bred 
animals with good milking qualities. There it is intended to gradually 
weed out the Indian cows and have a dairy entirely composed to 
English cattle. . 
There should be no difficulty in doing this as the cattle thrive at 
that elevation (3,500 ft.) much better than on the P ams. The native 
cows in the herd are being sired by the Shorthorn Bull and gieat things 
are expected in the future. It is hoped that the young progeny from 
this Bull will gradually spread over the Peninsula as I have no doubt they 
will Several private individuals are doing good work on -similar lines 
but in a smaller way and at present I see no reason to doubt that in 
time an entirely new race of dairy cow will spring up far superior to 
the native beast in milk and beef producing qualities. , 
That an improved milk supply is urgently needed, especially m 
large towns like Singapore, Penang, Kuala Lumporandlpoh goes 
without saying and outbreaks of disease such Mtnhwd eve 
amongst Europeans are surprisingly rare, when we look at the filthy 
samples of fresh milk offered for sale in these places. The absence o 
disease is probably due to the fact that most people dread the local 
article and used tiuned or bottled milk which is at leas = ; t 
Milk although one of the most valuable forms of natural food is at 
the same time one of the best agents for conveying and spreading disease 
germ if therefore there be any infection present at the source of supply 
it can be taken as a certainty that the milk will quickly com ey the 
germs to every point where it is distributed. When we look at the 
filthy state of native cattle sheds and the manner in which the natives 
live crowded together in the same sheds with tire cattle we see at once 
