Monthly bulk tank milk samples and veterinary records were analyzed for 1 yr on 15 Vermont dairy farms. Data were evaluated using ANOVA to compare effects of grazing management systems on milk quality and udder health. Systems evaluated were intensively managed rotational grazing, traditional continuous grazing, and confinement housing. Bulk tank samples were evaluated for standard plate count, bacterial type counts on tryptose-blood-esculin agar, and SCC. Veterinary records were evaluated for incidence of clinical mastitis, udder edema, and teat injuries. Within- and between-treatment group analyses were conducted by season, herd size, and udder sanitation systems. Mean standard plate counts were lower in rotationally grazed herds than counts of confined herds during the grazing season. Similarly, rotationally grazed herds with fewer than 60 cows had lower standard plate counts than confined herds of similar size. Mean bulk tank counts of streptococci other than Streptococcus agalactiae during the grazing season differed among treatments. The lowest counts occurred in rotationally grazed herds. Among herd using predip products recognized as efficacious, fewer streptococci other than S. agalactiae were isolated from bulk tank milk of rotationally grazed herds than confined herds. Rotationally grazed herds using postdips recognized as efficacious had lower SCC than those using unrecognized postdips. No udder health differences were observed among grazing treatments.

The potential to change agricultural land use to increase soil carbon stocks has been proposed as a mechanism to offset greenhouse gas emissions. To estimate the potential carbon storage in the soil from regional surveys it is important to understand the influence of environmental variables (climate, soil type, and landscape) before land management can be assessed. A survey was done of 354 sites to determine soil organic carbon stock (SOC stock; Mg C/ha) across the Lachlan and Macquarie catchments of New South Wales, Australia. The influences of climate, soil physical and chemical properties, landscape position, and 10 years of land management information were assessed. The environmental variables described most of the regional variation compared with management. The strongest influence on SOC stock at 0–10 cm was from climatic variables, particularly 30-year average annual rainfall. At a soil depth of 20–30 cm, the proportion of silica (SiO2) determined by mid-infrared spectra (SiMIR) had a negative relationship with SOC stock, and sand and clay measured by particle size analysis also showed strong relationships at sites where measured. Of the difference in SOC stock explained by land use, cropping had lower soil carbon than pasture in rotation or permanent pasture at 0–10 cm. This relationship was consistent across a rainfall gradient, but once soil carbon was standardised per mm of average annual rainfall, there was a greater difference between cropping and permanent pasture with increasing SiMIR in soils. Land use is also regulated by climate, topography, and soil type, and the effect on SOC stock is better assessed in smaller land-management units to remove some variability due to climate and soil.

Purpose-To measure marketing performance in a holistic sense. Design/methodology/approach-To augment the prevailing customer relationship marketing paradigm, a holistic stakeholder relationship marketing paradigm is proposed in which holistic marketing performance is reflected in the delivery of long-term economic, social, and environmental value to customer, employee, supplier, community, and shareholder stakeholders of a business in order to enhance sustainable financial performance. Present stakeholder attitudes are measured in a stakeholder performance appraisal within a stakeholder relationship marketing model, as timely, early warning signals of future stakeholder behaviour and concomitant future business performance. Findings-Stakeholder performance appraisal results to date indicate that a holistic stakeholder relationship marketing orientation that incorporates triple bottom line philosophy significantly enhances business financial performance beyond that achieved by a customer relationship marketing orientation. Research limitations/implications-The stakeholder performance appraisal has been applied to only 33 businesses to date providing scope for wider application of this measurement system to demonstrate its practical usefulness in measuring holistic marketing performance and future financial performance. Practical implications-The stakeholder performance appraisal provides a perceptual overview of holistic marketing performance and concomitant business financial performance from stakeholders in terms of quantitative ratings of economic, social and environmental performance, and qualitative strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. These data enable a business to plan stakeholder relationship marketing strategies to enhance performance and to predict future financial performance. Originality/value-The stakeholder relationship marketing model and the stakeholder performance appraisal are new, unique, managerially useful additions to existing stakeholder models and metrics.

This paper represents the views of the author(s) and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of Statistics Canada. Aussi disponible en français 4 Macroeconomic contextTo place the analysis in context, charts 1 and 2 show trends in two sets of widely used indicators for Canada and the United States over the past 25 years. The trends in gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in chart 1 support the conventional wisdom that the U.S. economy both is richer and has been growing at a somewhat faster rate than the Canadian economy. The reason there are two curves for the U.S. trend is to indicate the sensitivity of this comparison to alternative ways of converting U.S. GDP per capita from U.S. dollars into Canadian dollars of equivalent purchasing power. The standard approach is to use purchasing power parities rather than the exchange rate, but there are several such measures available. (See appendix.) In the comparison presented in chart 1, the specific measure chosen does not affect the overall result, but it will be important in subsequent comparisons between the two countries.Chart 2 shows trends in two sets of official labor market indicators. Employment-topopulation ratios have been trending up slowly in both countries, although the U.S. rate has moved ahead of Canada's since the later 1980s. Unemployment rates, which once were similar in the two countries, began to diverge in the early 1980s, with the Canadian rate now almost double that of the United States. This suggests a weaker labor market in Canada. Workers and labor market earningsGiven the foregoing background, this section focuses on individual incomes from working. The next section considers family disposable income. 1Average earnings. The major source of income for the vast majority of families is from working. Income is defined in this article to include both employment and self-employment income, or "earnings," for short. Table 1 shows earnings for the United States and Canada over the past two decades. 2 Both mean and median earnings are presented for all "working-age" individuals, defined as those aged 18 to 64, and also separately for men and women. In this table, dollar amounts are "own-country" currencies. These earnings data support the view that the U.S. economy has been growing faster overall than Canada's. From the information in the first row, mean earnings in Canada grew by

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