DAIRY MEETING. 79 



producers as their mothers, and most of them will excel her. 

 The product will be increased and the value of the herd in gen- 

 eral greatly enhanced. The money first expended will come 

 back bringing a dividend with it. 



Once the breed has been decided upon always stick to the 

 same blood. The mistake is often made of jumping from one 

 breed to another. If a change must be made, sell out and start 

 at the bottom again. The results will be just as satisfactory, 

 and as a financial venture the returns will be greater. Last 

 summer I met one dairyman who had graded up a herd of 

 Jerseys until he had a creditable herd returning a good profit 

 annually. For some reason he had changed from selling cream 

 to selling milk. The Jersey grades did not give as much milk 

 as he desired, so he purchased a Shorthorn sire to head his 

 herd ; as he said, to increase the quantity of his milk and bring 

 larger calves for vealing. It is quite easy to predict the future 

 of that herd. Xot only is the work of the past dozen years 

 being obliterated Itut also two extremes are being brought 

 together. They do not mix well, and the results are as likely 

 to be a failure as a success. 



In advocating the work of grading up! I do not under-estimate 

 the work of the breeder of pure-breds. His work is the ideal 

 which all are striving to reach. There is no true breeder but 

 that has it in his mind to some day own a herd of pure-bred 

 animals. Nobody should be interested more in the practice of 

 grading than the breeders themselves. It forms a market for 

 the male progeny of their herd. 



There is no way to so thoroughl}- know a breed as through 

 its grades. \\'ith a herd of grades a few pure-bred females 

 can be purchased, be the number ever so small, and in a few 

 years time the pure-bred animals will have replaced the grades 

 and the goal will have been partly reached ; but the work is not 

 finished, it has just commenced, — the perfecting of the herd and 

 the endeavor to reach the ideal which can be approached but 

 never reached. 



•The selection of the sire, be it for the grade or pure-bred herd, 

 should occupy the attention of the breeder. Right at this point 

 serious mistakes can be made that it will take years to undo, 

 unless thev are discovered in season. 



