144 Thirty-Sixth Annual Report of the 



vvliich oil raising have proven satisfactory, as judged by our 

 standards, has been far less than 50 percent. It should be re- 

 marked, however, that the likelihood of successful upgrading 

 is increased in proportion as the original stock is poor. The man 

 whose herd averages 150 pounds can better that record far 

 easier than can he whose herd averages 300 pounds maintain 

 his standing. The selection of the sire, which is to be half of 

 the coming herd, and the breeding of superior heifers, is no easy 

 task, but a complicated problem of uncertain outcome. And yet 

 naught better can be suggested than to make such choice of the 

 head of the herd as seems wisest ; and to that end I deem it prac- 

 ticable that those who seek such an animal, as well as those who 

 wish better to know a good cow when they see her, should study 

 thoroughly the matter of relationship of type to performance ; 

 that they should learn to judge cattle and to appreciate the mean- 

 ing of the "points" of the score card ; that they should familarize 

 themselves with such admirably adequate, yet simple directions 

 touching the correlation of form and function as are furnished 

 free for the dairy world in Director Soule's treatise on the "Con- 

 formation of Beef and Dairy Cattle," Farmer's Bulletin No. 143, 

 of the U. S. Department of Agriculture; and that they should 

 make use of their apprehension of these assembled concrete ex- 

 pressions of experience in the selection, the purchase and the 

 feeding of cows. He who is thus fortified is apt to make fewer 

 mistakes than does he who has not this special knowledge. To 

 be sure, successful animal husbandrymen are apt to be born 

 rather than made; but their judgments may be thus matured 

 and standardized. 



i.e;arn the: dairy points of a cow. 



Get (free) Farmers' Bulletin No. 14.3, on Conformation of Dairy 

 Cattle, 44 pages, 44 illustrations. Plain, simple, serviceable. Applj' 

 Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C. 



Yet, when all is said, "handsome is that handsome does," 

 and actual performance at the milk pail is of more avail than 

 are ideal contours, tortuous milk veins or a prominent pelvic 

 arch. A few observations made at the Vermont Station have 

 pertinence here and illustrate this point. Our cows are under 

 constant observation. We have records extending over ten 

 years of lactation in several cases. These cows were carefully 

 "judged" according to the "scale of points" of the Jersey Cattle 

 Club by a party who was fairly well skilled in judging and who 

 only knew in a general way how good or how poor dairy animals 

 they were. He similarly surveyed two registered Ayrshire herds 



