By Dr Clive Dalton Find the best cows The early dairy farmers in New Zealand soon wanted to find out which were their best cows, so weighing each cow’s milk and then taking a sample for a butterfat test was the obvious way to do this, as butter was the main export. This was called … Read more
These photos were found in an album in the Livestock Improvement Corporation library at Newstead in Hamilton when I did the 4WRD exhibition at the Waikato Museum of Art and History in 2008. It was the only archival material they had from the herd testing days. It’s clear from the photos that the horses were … Read more
By Dr Clive Dalton Peter Copeman Peter Copeman was born in Chichester and moved to Mellor to Basingstoke, Watford, Briston and then Mellor near Blackburn in Lancashire before he was 11 years old. He had been a member of the Air Training Corps since he was 13 so opted for the RAF when he was … Read more
By Dr Clive Dalton Alex Henderson was born on the family farm, called ‘Barelees’ near Forde in Northumberland, 30 miles from the Scottish Border where he worked as a shepherd for four years after he left school. To earn some money, as farmers’ sons only got their keep but never proper wages, he went to work for … Read more
By Dr Clive Dalton Family farm too small Former herd testers – Jim Crawford (right) and Alex Henderson Jim Crawford came from a farming family in Ireland, but there was little future for farmer’s sons who got their keep, their clothes and no pay. Jim’s brother was on the farm but there was no room … Read more