124 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



Of course any healthy cow may be turned into beef, and her 

 progeny into veal or beef, while such milk as she gives will pro- 

 duce cream and butter ; and this might be true of any " scrub " 

 cow in existence. Wihat we mean is this — no farmer has any 

 right to expect ideal milk and beef production from the same 

 cow. The very food we furnish will not make the most beef and 

 the most milk at the same time. Which do we wish to produce ? 

 I assume that we are not trying to break the beef trust, but we do 

 aim to have the best dairy herds, and make as much money as we 

 can. 



With this ideal in view, I am going to try to tell you how to 

 build up a dairy herd. Let us take the conditions as they are. 

 With perhaps a score of exceptions where pure bred herds are 

 kept in our State, our dairy cows represent an indiscriminate 

 mixture of every known and unknown breed in the dairy line. 

 And for fear that the variety should not be great enough, even 

 the well known beef breeds have been called upon to make the 

 chaos all the greater. 



Ask a farmer what kind of cows he keeps and he replies, "Oh ! 

 just plain cows, any kind that I can buy," and if you were to see 

 his herd you would easily believe that he told the truth. 



Of course every farmer cannot afford to buy and own a pure 

 bred dairy herd. This, however, is the thing that ought to be 

 aimed at. It costs no more to keep and feed a pure bred cow 

 than it does the commonest " scrub," and it would pay us far 

 better in the end. 



Holland, the Island of Jersey, or Guernsey, or the Highlands 

 of Scotland give full proof of this. When we want an ideal 

 dairy cow we go to one of these four localities and import one. 

 If they were content to mix things up the way we do, their 

 profitable sales would cease. 



Remember, I only say this is the ideal and that we should not 

 be satisfied until every cow in Maine is a pure bred cow of some 

 sort. 



Still, I am willing to ask that we simply do the best we can 

 under all the circumstances. First, therefore, let me insist that 

 every dairyman shall select the dairy breed that suits him best. 

 He has four prominent ones from which to choose: Ayrshire, 

 Guernsey, Holstein and Jersey. (I name them in alphabetical 

 order, and not necessarily in the order of personal preference.) 



