FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 13ft 



THURSDAY AFTERNOON. 



THE DAIRY HERD— BREEDING. 



MR. J. H. BROWN, CLIMAX. 



A dairyman in going into the business of making butter should have 

 this point in view, to breed to one cow or a herd of cows that will pro- 

 duce the greatest amount of butter in any one year or during one period 

 of lactation. The first question I am usually asked is, what breed of 

 cows will do this? That is a hard question. With what experience I 

 have had, I have found that some of the scrubbiest scrubs would lead the 

 Jersey and Guernsey in this production of butter fat. Do not understand 

 that I claim that the scrub is better than the thoroughbred. It depends 

 on a man's standard of excellence. It isn't all in the pedigree, but a man 

 in breeding a dairy herd must have in view the environment of his cattle, 

 and the feeding, housing, and water, and those little things which we 

 often do not think of as essential. 



One of the best helps we ever struck in trying to breed a dairy herd, 

 was in using a pair of scales, a Babcock milk test, and a sheet of paper 

 and a pencil. There is no man, I don't care who he is, who can breed and 

 keep his herd up to a high standard of excellence unless he has these four 

 things. He must have a record of some kind and occasionally review 

 what he has been doing, and know where he stands. 



THE STANDARD OP EXCELLENCE 



for butter makers is this: If we have a herd of scrubs, native cows, and 

 we have to breed up from what we have on hand, our object should be to 

 fix in mind a certain standard of excellence, and bend all our energies in 

 making the feeding and environment tend toward that result. Unless 

 we do this, we are breeding in an indiscriminate manner. The man who 

 is breeding up stock and doesn't know what he is doing, might far better 

 be out of business. More than one half the cows that are giving milk, 

 where the product is made into butter, I believe are not paying for their 

 board. I think I would even be safe in saying that two-thirds are not 

 paying for their board. 



A few of the principles in breeding which I was taught were, first, that 

 like begets like. Take a certain cow, a native cow or a Shorthorn cow, 

 and breed her to a male of the same grade without any points of excel- 

 lence, we are not improving our herd. Consequently, if we use only 

 native stock to breed up, we must see that our sire is just what a sire 

 ought to be, in order to develop the qualities in the progeny of this cow 

 or a herd of cows, so that ultimately we will have the cows that will 

 furnish the largest amount of butter product. Those cows, which by 

 test, and a careful record of the amount of butter made in one year, are 

 found to be the ones to breed from, should be chosen. We bred from a 



