Good Cattle On

Tahiti

Dairy Farming and Experimental Breeding

From Our Own Correspondent PAPEETE, March 1.

MR. LEWIS HERSHON, who recently acquired the estate attached to the historic Rougier mansion at Taaone, on Tahiti, has established there a dairy of blooded cattle and mechanical equip ment such as has never been seen before in this part of the world.

Mr. Hershon’s land-holdings now com prise the greater part of the property bought by three pioneers, MM. Robin, Martigny and Manson, in the 1860 decade, and later turned into a sugar plantation by subsequent proprietors—the Tahiti Sugar Company and Mr. Norman Brander.

The building, originally erected as a cotton-gin, and afterward used as a stable and store-house for the sugar plantation, has been remodelled for its present pur pose. The structure, built of sound, heavy timber, in a day when men put honest work and good materials into buildings, needed little new material in its re construction.

Milking machines, food chopper, pumps and other machinery are driven by electricity.

The herd is made up of 20 Jersey and 20 Holstein cows of pure race, and 2 bulls, recently imported from Fiji. The Fiji Pastoral Company, who supplied the cattle, selected the choicest of their herd to fill Mr. Hershon’s requirements, and he is most gratified; all arrived in perfect condition.

Mr. Hershon now is selling his calves to other herders, in order to improve the strain of cattle throughout the is land. Later on, he intends to cross-breed his dairy cows with a pure bred zebu (Indian bull), to add to his beef herd on another plantation.