FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 141 



two COWS that will beat all the others, and they are Shorthorns. It is 

 because those cows have been bred along the daivj line. 



There is another little thing that comes in this connection. We made 

 a mistake in selling one cow last year, simply because we didn't under- 

 stand her. We milked her a year, and she didn't produce the amount of 

 butter we thought she should, and we sold her. For some reason she 

 didn't produce last year, but this year she is beating the record. We 

 tested her occasionally, weighed the milk night and morning, and here is 

 the point we should look at. No cow, during a period of years, will pro- 

 duce the same each year. Don't always judge from one year's record. 



It is by looking after all these little things in breeding, that we farmers 

 can hope to improve in whatever stock we have. 



DISCUSSION. 

 LED BY MR. AARON CLARK, MIDDLEVILLE. 



I quite agree with the paper that has been presented. I can only sup- 

 plement the statements already' made. Of course now there is a. theory 

 connected with breeding. This gentleman has given us the practical 

 results of a theory. Years ago we had theory without practice, you 

 remember, and book-knowledge became a by-word, but today we have a 

 practical class of experiments; but they are based upon theories. 



I take the position that when you want an animal to perform a par- 

 ticular function, you must breed in that line. You must form your model 

 the same as the breeder of the race horse did, as the breeder of the 

 draught horse did, keeping distinctly in that line, and always breeding 

 up to your model. The time will come when there will be no general pur- 

 pose horse, no general purpose animal, no general purpose cow or sheep. 

 As my friend said, they may be used to bridge over; that is all right, but 

 you must always bridge in the line of your model. How did he get his 

 Shorthorn milch cow? I am a great admirer of Shorthorns, and there 

 was a time when they were demanded, when people demanded a cow 

 that would produce both milk and beef, and the Shorthorn was a grand 

 good cow. But the men breeding for beef took the Shorthorn and bred 

 lier in the line of beef, until the world says they have bred the milk out 

 of her. They are doing that, if they have not already done it. Why? 

 Because they have a demand for that kind of animal, one that will, from 

 the least amount of food, produce the most flesh, and that is right; they 

 have gone in that direction and neglected the dairy interest, the dairy 

 properties of the Shorthorn, and produced an animal that is par excel- 

 lence as a food animal. Now this gentleman has stated that he had one or 

 two Shorthorns. There are many Shorthorns that are good milkers yet, 

 but the type of the Shorthorn is the type of the beef animal. Wherever 

 they gain in beef properties, they lose in the dairy. The rule is made — 

 no man can serve two masters — either he will love the one and despise 

 the other; and a man cannot serve two masters in the dairy world, or the 

 beef producing world, any more than in the moral world. 



In my opinion, the dairy is the coming interest for the farmer to- 

 engage in. 



