142 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



the first and probably the most important lesson in breeding — 

 selection. 



Having learned this as regards the cow as the mother of our 

 improved young stock, we naturally learn that the sire must 

 be equally as good or better. . Absolutely, live stock breeding 

 must be systematic and logical and the olden declaration that 

 "Men do not gather figs from thistks'' has never lost one parti- 

 cle of its truthfulness. And this better sire means back of 

 him a good mother and, indeed, a long line of good sires and 

 dams, for if he shall not 'have such a proven good long line 

 back of him we have no assurance that he is going to be the 

 good sire, that he has the in'herited, prepotent, potential ability 

 to do a sire's work in our scheme of producing cows that in 

 their turn shall be producers of milk and of better offspring. 



As a breeder and a student of the work of breeding, I do 

 not hesitate to say that if we do not follow carefully along this 

 line of selection of both the dam and the sire, we cannot ex- 

 pect the results of our breeding operations to be any more de- 

 pendable and productive of definite results toward improve- 

 ment than if we were to allow our herds and flocks to revert 

 to the primitive accidents of natural selection. 



We breeders and dairymen are confronted by the question of 

 the production of this better cow, and better families and races 

 of cows, by the urgency of necessity. The poor, unprofitable 

 cow is an extravagance, a waste, a sin, and must go. The 

 better cow is a necessity, a burden bearer, a living maker, a 

 home and farm and soil and prosperity and good citizenship 

 builder and she must come. If we as her owners are not quali- 

 fied to produce her and environ her then of course the first 

 move in producing her is to develop ourselves, which suggest-; 

 to me an excellent place to close ; but with the volunteer 

 thought or suggestion that this human development shall not 

 be narrowed down to one tiresome idea, to a single talent or a 

 taste, but shall embrace and encompass the balanced up, the 

 rounded out and polished off completion of our finest citizen- 

 ship. 



