In the past few years a remarkable new interest in the breeding of dairy cattle has come to be shown in Great Britain and, as a result, renewed attention has been focussed on the subject down for discussion to-day. I think there are two main causes of this new interest. The first is the certainty—for as far ahead as we can see—that milk is likely to remain agricultural product No. 1. With this has come the conviction that to ensure efficient production at the source we have to introduce more certainty into our methods of breeding for milk. The poor level, by any standards of breeding efficiency, of a great number of our dairy herds has been one of the revelations of the war years; there is now factual evidence for what has been suspected for a long time.

In New Zealand, herd recording, since the introduction of the Herd Improvement Plan in 1938, has been governed in policy by the Herd Recording Council in Wellington. In 1938 the decision was taken to extend the scope of the milk recording movement so that milk records could be used for:—

• (1) improvement through breeding;

• (2) studies on farm management, including the prevention of disease in dairy herds; and

• (3) studies on problems of nutrition on dairy farms, em-bracing not only the feeding of dairy cattle and young stock, but also such matters as the influence of soil types, pasture species, etc.

There are six Herd Improvement Associations and a representative of each Association is elected annually to the Herd Recording Council with full voting power.

Official Milk Recording has been operated in Scotland since 1904. The Association came into being in 1914. The objects of the Association as laid down by the Constitution and Rules are:

• (1) To foster and improve the milking qualities of Cows in Scotland, and

• (2) To institute on a public and reliable basis, the taking of daily or periodic tests of Cows for quantity and quality of milk.

To meet the terms of this Constitution a system has been evolved whereby a Recorder visits the farms of milk recording herd owners at intervals of 24-28 days, weighs the milk of all cows in milk in the herd, and tests for butterfat in respect of all cows which are to be included in the record. While the milk of all cows must be weighed, butterfat testing in respect of all cows is not essential.