Vermont Dairymen's Association. 81 



through milking, why you won't get anything for the carcasses ?" 

 What do you want anything for the carcass for? If you figure 

 up your accounts with a first-class dairy animal, you will find 

 you can well afiford if need be to bury her when she dies, because 

 she has left you a good legacy. Don't count her on carcass, 

 because if you have done as you ought, you will find you have 

 a real affection for that cow by the time she is 12 or 13 years 

 old, and you won't want to send her ofl^ to the stock yards ; you 

 will give her a decent burial. "What do you have that runt of 

 a Jersey for?" "Well, it's all right; the Jerseys are rich, no 

 getting around that, and you have done pretty well ; but I will 

 tell you what you ought to do now. You should have a Holstein 

 and you will get a large flow of milk and you will have some- 

 thing just fine for a dairy." Then the Jersey will be discarded 

 and in just a year or two another neighbor will pass by and he 

 will say, "Ah, I see you are on the way to having pure bred cat- 

 tle. Now you have some Jerseys there and you have some 

 Holsteins ; that is all right ; you have the richness and the flow 

 of milk ; but if I were you I would not have that big kind of 

 a cow. I will tell you what I would do; the Jerseys are too 

 small, and if I were you I would get Guernseys. They are 

 larger than the Jerseys ; and he puts the Guernsey at the 

 head of the herd. And what has he done? He has not built 

 up anything. He has made a mongrel of them all. Now, 

 when you come to build up your herds, do it in a symmetrical 

 manner. Do it as you would lay out land for ploughing, — put 

 a little white flag at the end and keep your eye on that flag. 

 You know >'Ou might hit a stone, but you will keep your eye on 

 the flag and come back into line. Do this with your breeding, 

 breed carefully to the line, and then in a few years, you will have 

 a herd of pure bred cattle, — not eligible to registry, but for every 

 other purpose equal to the pure bred cattle; and you can well 

 afford to do it. 



When you have the sire carefully selected, look well to the 

 mother. These mothers have a way of leaving their imprint 

 on the offspring. Look well to the mother. See that she has 

 constitution and that she is a persistent milker. Now the cow 

 that will give a full pail of milk, and dwindle down, and in six 

 months go dry and board with you the rest of the year, is not 

 a profitable dairy worker ; but the cow that will give you a reason- 

 able flow of reasonably rich milk for at least ten months in the 

 year is a good animal to breed from. Now, if this mother has 

 been carefully fed and cared for, when the little creature comes 

 into the world, it will be a wild-eyed, lively little thing. And 

 now I am going to ask you right here at the start, when you go 

 put to the barn some morning and the little thing comes nosing 



