372 FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 



PEDIGREE THE SUREST TEST. 



We will mention a few records which show the results of breeding, as 

 proven by actual tests. 



Two cows of the same breeding, quality and production on the side of the 

 dam, but by different sires, one being used on account of his superior appear- 

 ance, the other for his breeding, and, under like conditions, one cow gave 

 about 10,500 pounds of milk in a year, while the other gave nearly 18,000 

 pounds. The former made about 11 pounds of butter in a week and the 

 latter over 22 pounds. Two heifers, from the same dam but by different 

 sires, one of which was especially noted for the butter qualities of his get, 

 and his ancestors, were tested at about the same age, at the same season of 

 the year, on a similar quality and amount of feed, when giving about the 

 same amount of milk, and one actually made over 110 per cent more butter 

 than the other. 



The only Holstein-Friesian cow, in fact, I believe, the only cow of any 

 breed that has made 304 pounds 5^ ounces of unsalted, well-worked, butter 

 in 90 days, was selected when an inferior looking calf, in bad condition, 

 entirely on her breeding and the reputation, qualities and superior produc- 

 tion of her ancestors. 



The only heifer, I believe, on record which has ever made at 28 months 

 of age 21 pounds lOf ounces of unsalted butter in a week, was bred with 

 the expectation of producing some such result. She was the produce of 

 one of the best butter cows, from one of the most noted butter families of 

 the breed, bred to her full-brother. By this close breeding the strong butter 

 qualities of the family were intensified, and this phenomenal heifer was the 

 result. 



The 3-year-old Holstein-Friesian heifer Albino 2d, which made last week 

 25 pounds 5^ ounces of butter and gave last year as a 2-year-old 18,484 

 pounds 13 ounces of milk in a year, sprang from a remarkable butter and 

 milk family. Her dam made 17 pounds 13 ounces of butter in a week, in 

 the hot and unfavorable weather of August, on grass, without grain of 

 any kind, and had had none for several months. Her grand-dam made 

 97 pounds 5 ounces of butter in 30 days and gave 956^ pounds of milk in 10 

 days. Albino, the dam of this, the most remarkable heifer the world has 

 yet produced, was bought at a very high figure as a yearling, on her breeding. 



Whole families show in an equally marked degree the effect of Judicious 

 breeding. You are all familiar with the remarkable butter records made by 

 whole families of Jerseys which have long been bred expressly for that pur- 

 pose. Whole families of Holstein-Friesians are proving equally remarkable 

 in this respect. An entire family of twenty cows of this breed shows an 

 average of 18 pounds and 1 ounce of butter per week, eight of them 

 being heifers from two. to four years old. Thirteen of these, including all 

 the mature cows, averaged over twenty pounds. Thirteen of these cows were 

 tested by carefully keeping the weights of milk at the time, and it was found 

 that the" average for the whole was a pound of butter from 18.82 pounds of 

 milk. Some of them made a pound of butter from thirteen and fourteen 

 pounds of milk. The value of these tests will be more fully appreciated 

 when it is known that this whole family of mature cows which were tested 

 for the year averaged 16,006 pounds of milk for the entire number. Thir- 

 teen cows in one herd average over twenty-three pounds of butter per week; 

 forty cows in the same herd have made butter records which average over 



