80 Thirty-Sixth Annual Report of the 



its characteristics ; but I am going to urge upon you the necessity 

 of breeding up your herds and breeding them up carefully and 

 with an object in view. 



In the first place, when you have decided what line of work 

 you are to follow, even if you have ordinary cows, I am going 

 to ask you to put a pure bred sire at the head of that herd and 

 breed up. I have known men to go to Farmers' Institutes and 

 Dairymen's Associations, and go home with a very laudable am- 

 bition to build up their herds, and I have known them to think 

 of getting a pure bred sire ; and perhaps some neighbor would 

 come along and say, "Where are you going to get him?" "Oh, 

 you know I have nothing but common stock, and I want to 

 breed up ; but I know a breeder who has pure bred stock. He 

 has pedigrees — pedigrees seven miles long, — and he has some 

 animals that aren't quite good enough for a breeder, but they are 

 good enough for me because I have common stock." 



Now, be careful, be careful ! You may not be building up 

 your herd ; you may be tearing down even the common ' stock- 

 that you have. In the first place, perhaps this breeder is sincere. 

 Nowadays they breed for hair and hoofs and hide and horns. 

 Those are not the milk qualities that we wish to perpetuate ; but 

 when those are what they are breeding for, they may look at 

 the fancy points quite as much as they do at other things. 



Let us see, — What must we have in a profitable dairy 

 worker? The first thing is constitution. Never let your eye 

 get from that one thing, constitution, in your daily herds if you 

 are to have profitable workers; therefore when you look at this 

 animal— and I wonld advise you to look at him — if he is lack- 

 lustred eyed, hide bound, and the breeder says he is gentle, then 

 hesitate. Of course he is gentle; he hasn't life enough to be 

 anything else, but gentlemen, don't touch him; don't touch him, 

 not if he ofifers him for ten shillings. He would be better under 

 ground. But if on the contrary, the breeder says, "Yes, I have 

 something," and he has a splash of white on him, — and these 

 people who are breeding for fancy colors think of these things. — 

 and he has large nostrils in order that he may breathe in quan- 

 tities of oxygen, if he has a broad chest, plenty of heart room, 

 has a soft mellow hide and has an altogether vigorous appear- 

 ance, with a bright eye, you may safely put him at the head of 

 your herd and yon are well on the road to improvement. 



But I have known people to perhaps have an animal of this 

 kind at the head of the herd for a year or so and a neighbor 

 would come along and say, "Hm, I see you are breeding up your 

 herd. Well, that's a good idea ; but what under the sun did you 

 get that measly runt of a Jersey for? Don't you know that 

 when you take those animals to the stock yard after they are 



