No. 7. DEPARTMEiNT OF AGRICULTURE. 379 



heifers, and none for his sire. He came to me and said, ''I. wish you 

 would tell me why you turned down my bull and my heifers;" well, 

 we brought out the bull; I could not find in him any of the rudimen- 

 tary lines. He said he never knew of the existence of anything like 

 that. Then we looked at the heifers; not one of them had an udder 

 bigg-er than a sheep, and he said he was disappointed in them, but 

 didn't know the reason. He didn't take offense at being turned 

 down, but declared his intention of trying to breed along the lines 

 I had pointed out to him. In this case, the sire had simply repro- 

 duced himself. 



I w^ant a good bull with good ancestry; the best I can get; but 

 when we get to a place where we must choose between a bull with 

 a good registered ancestry of performances and is not himself a 

 good specimen, and one who is a good individual, I would rather 

 have the bull that has the record of performance every time than 

 the one with no known ancestry, but a good individual. Keep a 

 record of his milk strain and breed from that. Give me a bull with 

 an ancestry of producers, and he wiU produce himself in his descend- 

 ants. 



Given these things, I know we can develop a herd of better quality, 

 and better producers than we can in any other way. 



The CHAIRMAN: We might devote a few minutes to the dis 

 cussion of Mr. Van Alstj'ne's address. 



MR. RODGERS: What effect would it have on the cream where 

 a farmer keeps one-half Holstein and one-half Jersey cows. Would 

 it churn together properly? 



MR. VAN ALSTYNE: Yes; there would not be so much, loss if 

 separated by machine. Of course we know that cream passes in 

 the separator as rapidly as the gravity allows, and the butter glo- 

 bules would not be mixed with those of the Jersey, and it would not 

 turn out quite so rich. And there is another point: what makes a 

 good ration for the Holstein will not make a good ration for the 

 Jersey. So I would rather have them one grade. Now, a man may 

 have to keep a Holstein and a Jersey if he sells the milk, to make it 

 a little rich. I have heard people say that the butter of the Hol- 

 stein was of excellent flavor, while tliat of the Jersey was not so 

 ideally flavored. That is not so at all. It is due to the feed, and 

 to the manipulation of the cream. 



MR. McCREARY: A yellow skin on the animal, would that count 

 in its favor? 



MR. VAN ALSTYNE: A yellow skin on a Holstein as well as on 

 any other animal will be a good indication that there is some butter 

 fat there, but it is not always a sure indication. Now, for instance, 

 the Guernsey cream is more highly colored than that of the Jersey, 

 yet the Jersey has the richer ekin, but has not, consequently, the 

 richer cream. A better way, I have found, is to turn back the ears, 

 and if they are oily, and to look again at the shoulder, and again at 



