পাতা:অনাথবন্ধু.pdf/৬৩৯

Neisgber9, ] ASAMSMSLSLSLSLSLSSSMAMSSSLSSLSLSSLSLMSLLSMMSLLLSMSSSLSSSLSLSLSLSLSLSLSSSMSSSMSSSLSSSLL LSSLSLS English cattle can be kept alive on the plains in India.” It has also been found that in anany cases bulls brought from other parts of India by depriving their native districts of really good bulls have not proved suited to the requirements of the cattle of the province. Hence we welcome the establishment of the Rangpur Farm where attention is being paid to rear good breeding bulls of the Bengal breed for supply to the districts. It is a pity that many dry cows, irrespective of age and condition, ultimately find their way to the butcher. In Calcutta the number of horned cattle slaughtered annually at the Tangra Slaughter-house amounts to about 90,000 and at Sonadanga to about 10,000. -Of these S,000 cows are said to be prime cows i.e., cows under seven years of age and fit for breeding purposes. The tocsin of alarm was sounded by the authors of Dairy Farming in India more than ten years back'Large numbers of milch cattle pass down yearly to Calcutta, chiefly from the Kosi market, and are there sold to local gowallas, the purchase-money being usually paid by instalments. At the end of the cold weather, when the cows are beginning to run dry and the sales of milk tend to decrease, they are sold to the butchers for slaughter. * * * This rapid exhaustion of stock ends in scarcity of supply.' And as the pick of the market is supplied to Calcutta the effect of the 1slaughter of these prime cows cannot but be (considered disastrous to the cattle of the Country. In the Report of the special Committee of the Calcutta Corporation appointed in 1910 to consider the question of the milk supply of Calcutta and re-constituted in 1914 We read-'As regards the slaughter of prime cows, there are various reasons why the goala sends his dry cows to the butcher. The space in his shed is limited and he can only accommodate a fixed number of cows. He keeps that number and is soon as they are of (по] THE CATTLE OF. BENGAL. 487 milk he sells them to the butcher and rer places them by cows in milk. His capin is also limited and whenever he needs to buy a new milking cow he has to sell a dry one. For similar reasons he cannot afford to keep the calves, which accordingly he also sells to the butcher; and as cows in this country are generally of poor milking capacity and do not give milk without their calves, the goala has recourse to phoola-a process which, as the evidence shows, is not only painful but tends to make the cow sterile, at least for some considerable time. The goala therefore finds it profitable to dispose of his dry cows, though undoubtedly the slaughter of cows, which under different conditions would continue to bear calves and give milk much longer, results, in the long run, in the permanent deterioration of the breed and seriously affects the milksupply of the country, which is already deficient both in quantity and quality. The town dairies draw to themselves year after year the best milking animals in the country, and there is already deficiency of such cattle in the up-country markets.' Then there is the huge waste of female buffaloes in Eastern Bengal where they are used for ploughing the fields. There one finds hundreds of prime female buffaloes without one bull for breeding purpose, And this when it is easier to improve the breed of the buffaloes than the breed of cows-in as much as even wild buffalo bulls cross with domesticated buffaloes. The effect is a deficiency in the milksupply. “The present price of milik in the larger towns is about 4 to 5 seers per rupee or Re. Il-4 to Re. Il-8 per gallon. This is probably dearer than the retail price at present (before the war) ruling in Great Britain. In Scotland the wholesale price per gallon (5 seers) is from 10d., to 18. The price of milk in Bengal has at least doubled within the last - 10 years and is likely to go up still further.' .