It has often been said that “grass is the cheapest and healthiest feed we can offer our farm animals.” There is a fairly good body of evidence and some consensus of opinion that grass is a cheap food (see J. R. Currie, 1948, J. Brit. Grassl. Soc, 3:27).

Grass fed in situ is cheap for us in Britain, because it is a crop which in terms of nutrients per acre either tops the list or is always in the higher yield group among our farm crops. This is true whether we base our comparison on starch equivalent or on nitrogen (expressed as crude protein). Productive grassland is always high in its comparative values.

The following table will serve to emphasise this point.

This table is based on data published in 1941 by Leeds University, and is an example of the sort of figures frequently given in respect of different crops.

Bovine mastitis still causes great loss despite modern treatment, and discussion of this subject is therefore particularly appropriate to the Society of Animal Production. Data obtained before modern treatment became available, in several countries where dairying is intensive, showed that some 3-4 per cent, of dairy animals were culled annually on account of mastitis, that at any given time about 10 per cent, had some obvious abnormality of milk or udder, and that a high percentage of animals—20-40 per cent, in many areas and countries—were infected with one or other of the recognised mastitis bacteria, the majority with Streptococcus agalactiae. Much of this has been overcome by modern treatment, and in some areas Str. agalactiae mastitis has already been eradicated from large numbers of herds. There is no doubt, however, that in many other areas mastitis remains a cause of heavy loss of yield—a loss which could largely be removed by more active measures for its control.

My work during the last few years has been to some extent concerned with attempts at the control of mastitis under ordinary farming conditions, and in speaking to you today I will confine my remarks to what I consider in that particular region of experience is relevant to your tasks and interests. I make no claim to have carried out any fundamental research on the micro-organisms associated with infections of the bovine udder. My aim has been rather to apply the results of primary scientific enquiries carried out at various research centres to practical problems in the field.

It will be appreciated that conditions existing on the average farm differ in many respects from those that pertain on the farms and premises of the field stations and research centres, where a more direct, complete, and constant control can be exercised by the research worker over animal management, milking practices and general hygiene, than is possible on farms scattered over a wide country area and where the investigator must of necessity work from a position somewhat remote. Much in the way of control has to be left in these circumstances to the farmer, his herdsman and the practising veterinary surgeon. The personal element therefore, will always weigh very heavily. The test of any scheme or programme designed to control mastitis is: Can it work under such conditions and produce the desired results ? I am convinced from my own experience that it can.

I have four dairy farms, two with pedigree Ayrshire herds and two with pedigree Friesian herds. We have a fifth herd we keep at home as a hobby herd, with special heifers and cows, and which my wife specially looks after.

On the four commercial farms we produce Certified milk. We milk about sixty cows; we also occasionally breed a pedigree bull; and we are interested in good records of butterfat. We find that the incidence of mastitis in pedigree cows is extremely important, because if a good-looking cow with a beautiful pedigree and a first-class record is suddenly struck with mastitis her whole history is ruined from the practical farmer's point of view. This is so important that on the four commercial farms we take regular monthly tests from each quarter of each cow. These are reported to me as well as to the veterinarian and to the herdsman who is handling the cows.

I agree profoundly with what Dr. Stableforth and Mr. Macpherson have said. There are, however, some points on which I would like to elaborate. The most important is the question of management. The sooner farmers fully realise the great importance of management, the sooner the control of mastitis will be effected. The question of management is inevitably one of personnel and the training of that personnel.

To-day there are fewer people than ever who can milk a cow efficiently by hand. The time has arrived when the veterinary surgeon will tell you that he would rather control mastitis in a machine-milked herd than in a hand-milked herd. That is not entirely due to the fact that you can thus eliminate the handling of the udder. It is simpler to train a man to use a machine efficiently than to hand-milk efficiently. There is no question whatsoever but that the handling of the cow's teats is a most important factor; and in machine milking the elimination of hand stripping is not only practical but is a most important contribution to avoiding transmission of infection. But more can be done.

We have had recommended to us to-day a number of measures than we can take to control and eliminate mastitis. I have not done the things that Dr. Stableforth told us we could do. I had to determine whether in my own particular circumstances, in the state of health or disease in which my herd was at the time and was likely to be in the future, in the light of the degree of supervision I could give to my herd management and with the particular circumstances of labour at my disposal, and all the other relevant factors, I should embark on a policy of eradication or whether I should tolerate the disease.

There is, obviously not one answer for every person. It must depend on each person's circumstances. But I think in regard to these circumstances and considerations that I have mentioned I am more fortunately placed, possibly, than the average farmer, with the single exception of the amount of time I can give to supervision. My labour is above the average in intelligence; my cattle are above the average in health; they are above the average in their state of nutrition. When I weighed up these factors, my decision was, rightly or wrongly, that I should tolerate the disease and not attempt to eradicate it.

In the economy of Scottish agriculture, the two mountain breeds of sheep, the Blackface and the Cheviot, play a most important part. Not only do they convert the rough herbage of the hills into wool and store sheep for fattening, but they also provide low country farmers with these handsome Crossbred ewes that are to be found everywhere, and which in their turn produce the heavyweight fattening sheep favoured by crop-growing farmers for the double purpose of converting aftermath, grass and roots into mutton and of maintaining the fertility of their soils.

Area covered.—The area dealt with in this paper is that which covers the Counties of Angus, Perth, Kinross, Fife, the Lothians, Haddington, Berwick, Peebles, Selkirk and Roxburgh. These counties embrace some of the finest arable land in Scotland, including some of the best stock breeding, rearing and fattening farms. Although there has been some change in the type of livestock carried on the arable lands, the arable output within the area was stepped up to the maximum during the war years, and is still working at this high level.

I propose to assume that the lowland farmer either breeds, rears and feeds his own stock, or brings them in as stores to finish off. His supply of store cattle will come from higher lying farms which are not so suitable for feeding, from small holdings in the lowlands, from marginal hill land farms, or from Ireland.

Breeds of Cattle for Beef.—The ideal animal for beef production must definitely be of the approved beef type. There are quite a few breeds of cattle in Britain of this type. Of course, in Scotland we depend chiefly on the Aberdeen-Angus and the Shorthorn, and in my opinion the best feeding animal is a cross between the two; or if a good bull of either breed is used on a strong dual purpose type of cow. the calf should make a useful carcase.

Scotland is a mountainous country, the area of mountain and heath land being very much larger than that of arable land. It is this immense area of poor quality, exposed, rugged land that provides the breeding ground for our great sheep industry.

The total number of sheep in Scotland in 1949, according to the June returns, was 7,102,873. In 1939 there were eight million. About two-thirds of the breeding ewes belong to the Scottish Blackface breed ; the others are Cheviots, Border Leicesters and crossbreds.