204 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



liave some practical value, and prove helpful to those engaged in 

 breeding any of the dairy breeds. 



All will agree that the selection of a bull is the most weighty re- 

 sponsibility that any breeder is called upon to assume. It cannot 

 be too often repeated and emphasized that the bull is half the herd. 

 The successful sire must have health, constitution and vigor. A mel- 

 low skin of medium thickness, soft hair and large bright eyes, short 

 legs, wide hips and a quiet disposition are desirable qualities as far 

 as they go. I attach no importance whatever either to the es- 

 cutcheon or to the rudimentary tests. Size of frame is often asso- 

 ciated with vigor, and a strong head tells the story of abundance of 

 nerve force, which is so important a characteristic of all great sires. 

 Shapeliness and symmetry are not to be overlooked, but every sug- 

 gestion of femininity is to be avoided. Therefore, we like a thick 

 horn and good bone substance rather than the opposite. Length of 

 body and depth of barrel are gauges of lung and digestive quality. 

 Sloping shoulders, thin thighs and angularity rather than roundness 

 of body are prized as outward signs of the dairy, as distinguished 

 from the beef type. But the prudent breeder will demand much 

 more in a bull than the points named. He will first of all require 

 that the animal be tuberculin tested, and pronounced sound by some 

 competent and reliable veterinarian. 



The individitality, record and pedigree of both sire and dam will 

 also receive the most careful attention. A man who will use a bull 

 whose dam is lacking in constitution, or having a defective udder, or 

 short, badly placed teats, or whose capacity for milk and butter is 

 small, will never make a success as a breeder of dailv stock, and 

 may count himself lucky if he does not spend his last days in the 

 poor house. Great cows may derive their excellence from their sire, 

 and thus have dams of only ordinary merit, but I have never seen a 

 great bull from a poor dam and I never expect to. Furthermore, I 

 should want the sire of my bull to have daughters with excellent 

 records for milk and butter, or himself to be from a dam with a 

 superior record. 



I should never select a bull, both of whose parents v.ere old at the 

 time he was dropped. I have examined the records in the last 

 volume issued by the American Jersey Cattle Club and I find that of 

 thirty-five bulls having twelve or more daughters each that have 

 made over fourteen pounds of butter apiece a week, onl}" three were 

 from a sire and dam averaging over ten years at the time they were 

 dropped. The average age of the parents of the thirty-five was six 

 years. Of the thirteen bulls credited with twenty or more daughters 

 with butter records of over fourteen pounds a week, only one has an 

 average age of the parenJs at the time of his birth of over ten years. 

 In this connection I wish to refer to four sons of the famous cow 



