DAIRY, SEED IMPROVEMENT, STOCK BREEDERS' MEETINGS. 21 5 



CATTLE BREEDING PROBLEMS AND THEIR 



SOLUTION/ 



Raymond Pearl, 



For some time past the writer has been occupied in the study 

 of various problems, both practical and theoretical, connected 

 with cattle breeding. At different times reports of the progress 

 of these investigations have been made to the Maine Dairy- 

 men's Association and the Maine Live Stock Breeders' Asso- 

 ciation. It is the purpose of the present paper to continue this 

 practice. We shall consider a number of problems on which 

 attention has been concentrated during the past year, in which, 

 the practical cattle breeder has a direct and practical interest.. 

 The results so far obtained do not give the solution of any of 

 the problems. On the other hand, these results do help us 

 forward in our analysis of them. There is no short cut to that 

 kind of knowledge which will make possible such control of the 

 processes of heredity as will enable the breeder surely to attain 

 the results he desires. Such knowledge can only be had as a 

 result of the careful, painstaking, and necessarily slow collection 

 and analysis of accurate data. It is just this thing which the 

 Maine Agricultural Experiment Station is trying to do in its 

 investigations along cattle breeding lines. 



In the present paper the following topics were discussed 

 and the work which had been done on each at the Maine Agri- 

 cultural Experiment Station was outlined : 



1. The relation of milk flow to age in dairy cattle. 



2. Comparison of American Advanced Registry Ayrshires 

 with Ayrshires in Scotland in respect of milk production. 



3. The construction and use of a Dairy Efficiency Table. 



4. Inbreeding in dairy cattle, with special reference to the 

 Jerseys. 



'(From the Biological Laboratory of the Maine Agricultural Experi- 

 ment Station.) 



